But this limitation was not sufficient. The unrestricted military jurisdiction of the magistrate was felt not to be in harmony with the new _régime_. A law was passed by P. Valerius, the first of the consuls, allowing an appeal to the people in their centuries against every sentence of a magistrate which was pronounced against the life of a Roman citizen. This _lex Valeria_ (509 B.C.) completed the popular jurisdiction which had been growing up during the monarchy,[321] and from this time no power but the people has the right to pronounce the final death sentence within the walls;[322] outside this sphere the military jurisdiction of the consul can be asserted without appeal—hence the distinction between the _imperium_ at home (_domi_) and abroad (_militiae_); the limit between the spheres being originally the _pomerium_, later the first milestone from the city.[323] Without this limit the axes are borne within the _fasces_, within it they are laid aside. Tradition adds that it was this final recognition of popular sovereignty which led to the custom of the consul lowering the _fasces_ before the people when he addressed them.[324] It does not appear that this great change was forced on the higher organs of the state by any popular agitation. It is no part of a distinctively plebeian movement. Senate and People, Patricians and Plebeians must have equally accepted as inevitable the doom of a power which had been dwindling to a shadow during the monarchy. The change from monarchy also witnessed the first attempt to weaken the unity of the executive power. The consuls were given two general assistants, the annually appointed _quaestores_. We have noticed the tradition which assigns these officials to the regal period,[325] but it is not wholly inconsistent with that which represents them as a part of the new constitution of 509. From being temporary delegates they now became permanent assistants of the consuls. Their sphere was as unlimited as that of the consuls themselves; they were meant simply to obey his behests. But two departments in which they represented the supreme magistracy must have stood out prominently from the first. These were criminal jurisdiction and finance.[326] The “city quaestors” (_quaestores urbani_), as they were subsequently called to distinguish them from their provincial colleagues, were known as _quaestores parricidii_[327] and _quaestores aerarii_. In their first capacity they were delegates whom the magistrate employed in criminal jurisdiction, probably occupying with respect to procedure much the same place as the _duoviri_ in the trial of Horatius.[328] The designation _parricidii_ may, however, show that they were employed in such criminal cases as did not directly affect the welfare of the state,[329] and by their side the _duoviri perduellionis_ reappear at intervals during the early Republic. Their financial functions are generally taken to imply the existence of a state treasury (_aerarium_).