The connexion of the praetors with criminal jurisdiction was, apart from the rare occurrence of a special judicial commission, due to the growth of the standing courts. These _quaestiones perpetuae_ or _judicia publica_ were to a large extent modelled on the civil procedure by which compensation was exacted through a court of _recuperatores_. Hence the praetors seemed their most appropriate presidents, and the size of the college was, as we have seen,[943] increased by Sulla to meet the growing number of these courts. For criminal jurisdiction six praetors were available, whose provinces were possibly determined by the Senate and were certainly distributed amongst the designated magistrates by the use of the lot.[944] Although the general principle of distribution made each praetor preside over the jurisdiction ordained by a single law which created a _quaestio_, yet the spheres of jurisdiction were by no means fixed. Groups of _quaestiones_ or of their branches[945] might be rearranged every year, and it may not even have been necessary for a single praetor to maintain a particular sphere of jurisdiction throughout the whole tenure of his office. The general administrative functions of the office might interfere with jurisdiction, and a readjustment of the original distribution of _provinciae_, probably with the consent of the Senate, seems to have been sometimes necessary.[946] _The Aediles_ The junction of the plebeian and curule aedileships into a single office is testified by their being spoken of together where their duties are mentioned or prescribed by law,[947] and the fusion was so complete that it is sometimes impossible to discover whether a historical reference applies to the plebeian or to the patrician magistracy. But in their respective qualifications for office, forms of election and _insignia_, the separation was still complete. The plebeian aediles must still be plebeians, while the curule aediles belonged in alternate years to either order;[948] the former were elected by the Plebs, the latter by the _comitia tributa_ of the people; the former sat on the modest bench of the plebeian officials and had no distinctive dress, the latter sat on the curule chair and wore the _praetexta_;[949] the anomaly remained that the one office was not a magistracy at all, the other a magistracy proper which gave its holder a claim to a seat in the Senate. The one peculiar privilege of the plebeian aediles—the _sacrosanctitas_ which they shared with the tribunes—vanished as a consequence of their employment as officials of the state.[950] The general position now assumed by the aediles was that of assistants to the consuls in the administration of the city; in the fulfilment of which task they had certain special spheres of competence assigned them.[951]