There were two kinds of municipal offices: the first, called _magistratus_, which conferred certain honours and a certain jurisdiction; the second, called _munera_, simple employments without jurisdiction and without any particular dignity. The _curia_ appointed to both kind of offices; only the magistrates proposed the men whom they thought competent to fulfil the _munera_; but even these were not really appointed until they had obtained the suffrages of the _curia_. The _magistratus_ were: 1. _Duumvir_; this was the most usual name of the chief municipal magistrate. He was also called, in certain localities, _quatuorvir, dictator, ædilis, prætor_. His tenure of office was for a year; it corresponded pretty nearly with that of our mayors; the _duumvir_ presided over the _curia_, and directed the general administration of the affairs of the city. He had a jurisdiction confined to matters of small importance; he also exercised a police authority which gave him the right of inflicting certain punishments upon slaves, and of provisionally arresting freemen. 2. _Ædilis_; this was a magistrate generally inferior to the _duumvir_; he had the inspection of public edifices, of the streets, of corn, and of weights and measures. These two magistrates, the _duumvir_ and _ædilis_, were expected to give public festivals and games. {199} 3. _Curator reipublicæ;_ this officer, like the ædile, exercised a certain oversight over public edifices; but his principal business was the administration of the finances; he farmed out the lands of the _municipium_, received the accounts of the public works, lent and borrowed money in the name of the city, and so forth. The _munera_ were: 1. _Susceptor_, the collector of taxes, under the responsibility of the curials who appointed him. 2. _Irenarchæ_, commissaries of police, whose duty it was to seek out and prosecute offences, in the first instance. 3. _Curatores_, officers charged with various particular municipal services; _curator frumenti, curator calendarii_, the lender out on good sureties of the money of the city, at his own risk and peril. 4. _Scribæ_, subaltern clerks in the two offices. To this class belonged the _tabelliones_, who performed almost the same functions as our notaries. The Defenders Of Cities.