4. Although the judicial power had been withdrawn from the localities, we nevertheless meet with some traces of a Jurisdiction somewhat similar to that which we call municipal police, giving judgment upon offences against the laws, with regard to public health, weights and measures, markets, and so forth. Municipal Officers. All these local affairs were managed either by magistrates appointed by the inhabitants, or by the _curia_ of the town or _college of decurions_, that is, of all the inhabitants who possessed a fixed landed income. In general, the _curia_ appointed the magistrates; we meet with some instances, however, of their being appointed by the general body of the inhabitants. But at this period, and by a necessary consequence of the existence of slavery, there were few free men who did not belong to the _curia_. The origin of the word _decurio_ is uncertain. Some writers are of opinion that he was an officer placed at the head of ten families, like the _tything-man_, or _tunginus_ of the German peoples. Others think that _decurio_ simply means member of a _curia_. The last interpretation seems to me the more probable of the two. At a later period, the decurions were called _curiales_. {184} Constitution Of The Municipia. Such was the constitution of the _municipia_ at the end of the Roman republic. It presents, as results, the following general facts: 1. All political rights and interests, all political life, in short, was centralized at Rome, not merely morally and by law, but materially and in fact. Within the walls of Rome alone could be consummated all the acts of a Roman citizen. 2. No centralization of this kind had taken place in reference to what we now call administrative interests. Each town had remained isolated and distinct in this respect, regulating its own affairs, just as a private individual would do. 3. The appointment and surveillance of the magistrates who administered the local affairs of the town took place on the spot, without any intervention of the central power, and by the assembly of the principal inhabitants. 4. Into this assembly were admitted all the inhabitants who possessed a certain income. There is reason to believe that a few free men only were excluded therefrom. Here begins a second epoch in the history of the Roman municipal system. The absolute separation of political from local existence, and the impossibility of exercising political rights elsewhere than in Rome, could not fail to deprive the towns of their principal citizens, and also of a great part of their importance. Thus, during the epoch which we have just surveyed, purely local interests occupied only a small place. Rome absorbed everything. The independence left to other towns, as regarded matters that were not treated of at Rome, or did not emanate from Rome, arose from the slight importance of those matters.