The aediles were also curule magistrates, and to them was entrusted the care of the public buildings, and the superintendence of public festivals. They were the keepers of the decrees of the Senate, and of the plebiscita. They superintended the distribution of water, the care of the streets, the drainage of the city, and the distribution of corn to the people. It was their business to see that no new deities were introduced, and they had the general superintendence of the police, and the inspection of baths. Their office entailed large expenses, and they were forced into great extravagance to gain popularity, as in the case of Julius Caesar and Aemilius Scaurus; but the aediles exercised extensive powers, which, however, were essentially diminished under the emperors. [Sidenote: The tribunes.] Allusion has already been made to the tribunes, in connection with the development of the plebeian power. At first they were only two, then in creased to five, and finally to ten. It was their business to protect the plebs from the oppression of nobles, but their authority was so much increased in the time of Julius Caesar that they could veto an ordinance of the Senate. [Footnote: Caesar, _De Beil Civ_., 1, 2.] They not only could stop a magistrate in his proceedings, but command their viatores to seize a consul or a censor, to imprison him, or throw him from the Tarpeian rock. [Footnote: Liv. ii. 56, iv. 26; Cicero, _De Legibus_, iii. 9.] The college of tribunes had the power of making edicts. After the passage of the Hortensian law, there was no power equal to theirs, and they could dictate even to the Senate itself. In the latter days of the republic, the tribunes were generally elected from among the senators. It was the vast influence which the people had obtained through the tribunes which led to the usurpation of Caesar; for he, as well as Marius, rose into power by courting them against the interests of the aristocracy. [Sidenote: The quaestors.] The last of the great magistrates whose office entitled them to a seat in the Senate were the quaestors, who had charge of the public money. Originally only two in number, they were raised by Sulla to twenty, and by Caesar to forty, for political influence. As the Senate had the supreme direction of the finances they were merely its agents or paymasters. The proconsul or praetor, who had the administration of a province, was attended with a quaestor to regulate the collection of the revenues. The quaestors also were the paymasters of the army. Such were the great executive officers of the state, having a seat in the Senate, and belonging to the noble class by their official position as well as by birth. No one could be consul until he had passed through all these offices successively, except the censorship. [Sidenote: Pontifex maximus.]