Praetors also generally presided over capital trials, of which the proper jurisdiction lay with the comitia. In Sulla's time their number was increased to ten, and each was chairman of the _quaestio_ which sat on one of the ten chief crimes, extortion, peculation, bribery, treason, coining, forgery, assassination or poisoning, and violence. [37] As assessors he had the _quaesitor_ or chief juror, and a certain number of the _Judices Selecti_ of whom some account has been already given. The prosecutor and defendant had the right of objecting to any member of the list. If more than one accuser offered, it was decided which should act at a preliminary trial called _Divinatio_. Owing to the desire to win fame by accusations, this occurrence was not unfrequent. When the day of the trial arrived the prosecutor first spoke, explaining the case and bringing in the evidence. This consisted of the testimony of free citizens voluntarily given; of slaves, wrung from them by torture; and of written documents. The best advocates, as for instance Cicero in his _Milo_, were not disposed, any more than we should be, to attach much weight to evidence obtained by the rack; but in estimating the other two sources they differed from us. We should give the preference to written documents; the Romans esteemed more highly the declarations of citizens. These offered a grander field for the display of ingenuity and misrepresentation; it is, therefore, in handling these that the celebrated advocates put forth all their skill. The examination of evidence over, the prosecutor put forth his case in a long and elaborate speech; and the accused was then allowed to defend himself. Both were, as a rule, limited in point of time, and sometimes to a period which to us would seem quite inconsistent with justice to the case. Instead of the strict probity and perfect independence which we associate with the highest ministers of the law, the Roman judices were often canvassed, bribed, or intimidated. So flagitious had the practice become, that Cicero mentions a whole bench having been induced by indulgences of the most abominable kind to acquit Clodius, though manifestly guilty. We know also that Pompey and Antony resorted to the practice of packing the forum with hired troops and assassins; and we learn from Cicero that it was the usual plan for provincial governors to extort enough not only to satisfy their own rapacity, but to buy their impunity from the judges. [38]