If one passes from the legislative and executive branches of the Roman government to the judicial, he thinks at once of Roman law, the greatest legacy which Rome has left us. With that subject we are not concerned in this book. But the judicial machinery of the Romans and some phases of their court procedure are of lively interest to one who is comparing Roman and modern institutions. Of most importance to us in this connection are the methods which the Romans followed in dealing with _crimina publica_, with what we may roughly, but somewhat inexactly, call criminal cases. For the hearing of such cases, by the early part of the first century before our era, the Romans had established eight or nine courts under the presidency of praetors and ex-aediles.[19] The competence of these several courts was essentially different from that of our courts and may well lead us to ask ourselves if our system makes for efficiency. One Roman court, for instance, confined itself to hearing cases of magistrates charged with extortion. Others heard respectively only cases of forgery, or of treason, or of corrupt practices at elections, or of peculation in office. Under this system each court was peculiarly qualified from long experience to deal with the class of cases which came before it. Under our practice today where cases of different sorts come before the same judge, such special competence as the Roman praetor and his board of trained jurists attained can hardly be gained. The praetor’s court continued to about the third century. Under the later empire criminal cases were heard in Italy by the city prefect or the praetorian prefect, and in the provinces by the governor.