[Footnote 54: This is probably a corrupt name. The territory of Arpinum, now Arpino, was in the Volscian mountains. Arpinum was also the birth-place of Cicero. Juvenal in his rhetorical fashion (_Sat_. viii. 245) represents the young Marius as earning his bread by working at the plough as a servant and afterwards entering the army as a common soldier.] [Footnote 55: Lucius Aurelius Cotta and Lucius Cæcilius Metellus were consuls B.C. 119, in which year Marius was tribune. The law which Marius proposed had for its object to make the Pontes narrower. The Pontes were the passages through which the voters went into the Septa or inclosures where they voted. After passing through the pontes they received the voting tablets at the entrance of the septa. The object of the law of Marius was to diminish the crowd and pressure by letting fewer persons come in at a time. Cicero speaks of this law of Marius (_De Legibus_, iii. 17). As the law had reference to elections and its object was among other things to prevent bribery, Plutarch's remark is unintelligible: the text is corrupt, or he has made a mistake.] [Footnote 56: The higher magistrates of Rome, the curule ædiles, prætors, consuls, censors, and dictator had a chair of office called a Sella Curulis, or Curule seat, which Plutarch correctly describes as a chair with curved feet (See the cut in Smith's _Dictionary of Antiquities_, "Sella Curulis"). The name Curule is derived from Currus, a chariot, as the old writers say, and as is proved by the expression Curulis Triumphus, a Curule Triumph, which is opposed to an Ovatio, in which the triumphing general went on foot in the procession. The Plebeian Ædiles were first elected B.C. 494, at the same time as the Plebeian tribunes. They had various functions, such as the general superintendence of buildings, the supply of water, the care of the streets and pavements, and other like matters. Their duties mainly belonged to the department of police, under which was included the superintendence of the markets, and of buying and selling. The Plebeian Ædiles were originally two in number. The Curule Ædiles were first elected B.C. 365 and only from the Patricians, but afterwards the office was accessible to the Plebeians. The functions of the Plebeian Ædiles seem to have been performed by all the Ædiles indifferently after B.C. 368, though the Curule Ædiles alone had the power of making Edicts (edicta), which power was founded on their general superintendence of all buying and selling, and many of their rules had reference to the buying and selling of slaves (_Dig._ 21, tit. 1). The Curule Ædiles only had the superintendence of some of the greater festivals, on which occasions they went to great expense to gratify the people and buy popularity as a means of further promotion. (See Sulla, c. 5.)]