In the two hundred and forty-fourth year from the building of the city, they elected two magistrates, of equal authority, and gave them the name of consuls. They had the same badges as the kings, except the crown, and nearly the same power; in time of war they possessed supreme command, and usually drew lots to determine which should remain in Rome--they levied soldiers, nominated the greater part of the officers, and provided what was necessary for their support. In dangerous conjunctures, they were armed by the senate with absolute power, by the solemn decree that the consuls should take care the Republic receives no harm. In any serious tumult or sedition they called the Roman citizens to arms in these words, "Let those who wish to save the republic follow me"--by which they easily checked it. Although their authority was very much impaired, first by the tribunes of the people, and afterwards upon the establishment of the empire, yet they were still employed in consulting the senate, administering justice, managing public games and the like, and had the honor to characterize the year by their own names. To be a candidate for the consulship, it was requisite to be forty-three years of age: to have gone through the inferior offices of _quæstor_, _ædile_, and _prætor_--and to be present in a private station. The office of prætor was instituted partly because the consuls being often wholly taken up with foreign wars, found the want of some person to administer justice in the city; and partly because the nobility, having lost their appropriation of the consulship, were ambitious of obtaining some new honor in its room. He was attended in the city by two _lictors_, who went before him with the _fasces_, and six _lictors_ without the city; he wore also, like the consuls, the _toga pretexta_, or white robe fringed with purple. The power of the prætor, in the administration of justice, was expressed in three words, _do_, _dico_, _addico_. By the word _do_, he expressed his power in giving the form of a writ for trying and redressing a wrong, and in appointing judges or jury to decide the cause: by _dico_, he meant that he declared right, or gave judgment; and by _addico_, that he adjudged the goods of the debtor to the creditor. The prætor administered justice only in private or trivial cases: but in public and important causes, the people either judged themselves, or appointed persons called _quæsitores_ to preside. The _censors_ were appointed to take an account of the number of the people, and the value of their fortunes, and superintend the public morals. They were usually chosen from the most respectable persons of consular dignity, at first only from among the Patricians, but afterwards likewise from the Plebeians.