The Praetor of the day--the Praetor to whom by lot had fallen for that year that peculiar duty--presided, and the judges all sat round him.

Their duty seems to have consisted in listening to the pleadings, and then in voting.

Each judge could vote[74] "guilty," "acquitted," or "not proven," as they do in Scotland.
They were, in fact, jurymen rather than judges.

It does not seem that any amount of legal lore was looked for specially in the judges, who at different periods had been taken from various orders of the citizens, but who at this moment, by a special law enacted by Sulla, were selected only from the Senators.

We have ample evidence that at this period the judges in Rome were most corrupt.