“Yet another book on the Roman quaestorship!” one might first think seeing the recent book by Grégory Ioannidopoulos. While the subject has long been neglected since the fundamental analysis by Theodor Mommsen in his Staatsrecht,[1] the Roman quaestors have formed the key subject of two monographic studies within the last years – besides the book by Grégory Ioannidopoulos the collaborative work The Quaestorship in the Roman Republic by Francisco Pina Polo and Alejandro Díaz Fernández (2019). The books are part of general trend in the field of ancient history, attesting the resurgence of an interest in Roman republican institutions within the last decades.[2] This increasing interest especially in Roman magistracies has produced various studies on the consuls (Pina Polo 2011), the praetors (Brennan 2000), the aediles (Daguet-Gagey 2015 and Becker 2017), the tribunes of the plebs (Lanfranchi 2015), the dictators (Garofalo 2017/2018 and Wilson 2021) and even on the magister equitum (Jordan 2024) and now also two studies on the quaestors.
One can only imagine what Ioannidopoulos must have thought when he first learned of the publication by Pina Polo and Díaz Fernández, which also got very positive reviews,[3] while preparing his doctoral thesis from 2019 for publication. One gets a glimpse of the author’s thoughts from the introduction to the volume where the general aim of the book is compared to the work of Pina Polo and Díaz Fernández (12). Although their recent study on the Roman quaestorship definitely has a lot of merits, Ioannidopoulos, to get straight to most important point, did well in not completely abandoning his project. The exhaustive analysis of the Roman quaestorship has much more to say than just being a French version of the recently published analysis in English. The comprehensive study on 820 pages offers an exhaustive analysis of the quaestorship with special focus on the period from 264–27 B.C. and in that way, even if the conclusions sometimes necessarily are the same, by the detailed approach in several aspects manages to go beyond the study of Pina Polo and Díaz Fernández.
The book is divided into two parts, which then again each are divided in two sections with several sub-chapters. The exhaustive analysis is framed by an introduction, placing the study in the long tradition of research on the Roman quaestorship since the 19th century, and a general conclusion, which is followed by a useful index on the quaestors with reference to the respective articles in the RE as well as to the catalogue of Pina Polo and Díaz Fernández, an index fontium and an index rerum. Following the holistic approach of the book, the first section of the first part, which seeks a definition of the quaestorship, starts with an exhaustive philological survey on the designation of the quaestors in Latin as well as in Greek (23-69). After an analysis on the Latin terms and a short overview on the difficult question on the origins of the quaestorship, the following part on the Greek translations of the Latin terms, profiting as well from the epigraphical record, offers especially interesting insights to the perception of the office by Greek authors. The analysis makes way for the following chapter on the “titulature des questeurs” with special regard to the developments of the late republic and the connotations of the designations quaestor pro praetore, pro quaestore and pro quaestore pro praetore (71-149).
The following section on the quaestorship as institution offers an exhaustive analysis of the different aspects concerning the magistrature (151-357). The study thereby in an exemplary manner masters the various sources available for the different tasks: the insignia of the questors, to give an example, were worked out by a close examination of the numismatic record (161-173). Ioannidopoulos furthermore analyses the powers of the quaestors, which like other magistrates held potestas and auspicia, and, in doing so, also tackles the various aspects of their competences (173-210). The section on potestas therefore takes into account the jurisdictional functions of the quaestors as well as their manifold relations to the people. In the context of the general aspects concerning the auspicia of the quaestors, Ioannidopoulos also discusses in length the difficult question of the scope of the lex curiata and therewith concludes that all magistrates, quaestors included, were covered by such a law (210).
The place of the magistrates within the cursus honorum as well as their relationship to the senate are the primary object of the following chapter (211-250). Following some general considerations on the cursus honorum Ioannidopoulos step by step analyses the general development of the republican quaestorship considering as well the gradual increase in the number of the magistrates before the reforms of Sulla. The historical outline necessarily also tackles the difficult questions concerning the accessibility of the Roman senate and the possible recruitment of former quaestors as senators. While the senate following the reforms of the lex Ovinia gradually developed to a council of former magistrates—a trend which was further accelerated by the exceptional lectio senatus of M. Fabius Buteo in 216 B.C.—Ioannidopoulos stresses again the general view that the quaestorship nonetheless guaranteed access to the senate only after the reforms of Sulla.
These considerations are continued in the following chapter by an analysis of the different aspects concerning the election of the quaestors, ranging from the general eligibility to the actual election and to the moment when the magistrates finally take office (251-357). Contrary to a predominant view especially of the scholarly tradition following Theodor Mommsen, the analysis shows quaestors to be magistrates in the strict sense and, at least for the 3rd century B.C. onwards, not only subordinates of the predominant consuls (359). The close examination of the sources proves the important role of the reforms of Sulla not only for the number and the location of the quaestors within the cursus honorum, who since then exclusively formed the primus gradus honoris, but also for the date, the magistrates took office in the 1st century B.C. According to Ioannidopoulos, the unusual date for inauguration of the quaestors on 5th December is convincingly explained by the Sullan reform of the praetorial quaestiones (360).
After the close and exhaustive analysis of the quaestorship as magistrature, the second part of the book is devoted to the actual functions of the questors in the last three centuries of the Roman republican age. An exhaustive introduction therefore first examines the provinciae of the quaestors in the strict sense by defining the respective areas of responsibilities within Rome as well as outside the city and thereby also analyses the alloccation of the various provinciae by lot (367-398). The first section thereafter is devoted to the urban questors and starts with a close analysis of the aerarium and the public finances in Rome as key tasks of the respective magistrates (401-436). The chapter closes with an analysis of the famous quaestorship of M. Porcius Cato Uticensis, which is in three lengthy chapters described by Plutarch, as a key source for understanding the republican quaestorship.
The following chapters are devoted to the various tasks attributed to the urban quaestors, who besides their financial competences also had to fulfill various administrative duties like the keeping of the public archives or the control of special parts of the ager publicus—the so-called ager quaestorius (437-574). The analyses are enriched by detailed presentations of the ancient sources and thereby for example offer a condensed historical interpretation of the famous rostra from the times of the first Punic war, which in 2005 were discovered in the area of the Aegadian Islands. A close examination also is devoted to the implications as well as to the consequences of the Sullan lex Cornelia de XX quaestoribus. The last chapter of the section is devoted to the extra-urban quaestors responsible for various affairs in Italy (575-611). Ioannidopoulos rightly rejects the hitherto vividly discussed theory by Theodor Mommsen who tried to reconstruct a system of fixed responsibilities for the new quaestors first elected in 267 B.C. Contrarily, Ioannidopoulos argues for a fluid system and rightly points to the fact, that the only thing one can extract for certain from the sources, is the observation that the system of quaestors with clearly defined competences in Italy must have been installed some time before the Augustan age (610-611).
The second section of the second part, which also closes the study, in various chapters discusses, again in full detail, the competences of the provincial quaestors. Following a general introduction (615-624), which also defines the category of provincial quaestors in contrast to other quaestors designated to superior magistrates, the second chapter discusses the subordination of the quaestors to the provincial governors (625-673). Special attention besides legal aspects is paid to the moral dimensions of the relationship culminating in the concept of necessitudo as moral category. Based on a detailed examination of the literary sources from Cicero to Pliny the Younger, Ioannidopoulos, apart from the general value of moral categories in Roman politics, rightly stresses the importance of necessitudo especially in a relationship which was based on a selection by lot. Consequently, at the end of the Republic, especially for the commands of Pompey and Caesar, there is regularly to be observed a selection extra sortem.
The following chapters are devoted to the various functions of the quaestors within the provinces (675-719) where Ioannidopoulos differentiates original functions (“fonctions propres”) and functions transferred to the quaestor by their superior magistrates (“fonctions déléguées”). Among the key competences of the quaestors, similarly to the task of their colleagues in Rome, are the financial administration of the provinces as well as the keeping of the archives and the public records. As substitutes for the magistrates in office within the provinces, the quaestors by delegation sometimes were even active in the fields of military actions and of jurisdiction, commanding for example in battels their own troops and therefore acting like legati or praefecti. The second part of the book as well as the study in a whole are summarized by two concise conclusions directly one after the other (721-721, 727-732) and record some of the most important outcomes of the previous analyses. Since some of the outcomes are already summarized in various interim conclusions within the several chapters, the general conclusions focus mainly on the various stages in the development of the quaestorship with special regard to the changes in the late republic from the reforms of Sulla to the beginning of the principate.
Nonetheless, the exhaustive study due to its thematic design sometimes lacks a comprehensive outline of the evolution of the quaestorship. By contrast, Ioannidopoulos by his holistic approach tackles almost every aspect of the Roman quaestorship in the Republican period and thus will henceforth become the key reference for the subject besides the more focused study of Pina Polo and Díaz Fernández. The various indices as well as the detailed structure of the several chapters make the book easily accessible for the reader, who will also profit from the close analyses of the key sources for the Roman quaestorship. The arguments are additionally enriched by various useful tables as well as by illustrations of coins and buildings, which are, with exception of figure 9 and figure 11, mostly presented in high quality. Furthermore the author proves himself well informed on the ongoing scholarly debates on the subject and, in that way, by questioning old certainties is able to enrich the discussions by new perspectives. For any future studies on the Roman quaestorship, the book by Ioannidopoulos certainly will be a crucial starting point.
Notes
[1] Cf. Knopf, Klio 103 (2021), 345.
[2] Cf. Walter, H-Soz-Kult, 02.08.2021: “Das Staatsrecht ist wieder da!”
[3] Cf. e.g. Kondratieff, BMCR 2020.04.39. Bur, BMCR 2021.05.34. Knopf, Klio 103 (2021), 345-349. Walter, H-Soz-Kult, 02.08.2021.