These magistrates were chosen every year.

There were two consuls, who were like kings for the time, only that they wore no crowns; they had purple robes, and sat in chairs ornamented with ivory, and they were always attended by lictors, who carried bundles of rods tied round an axe--the first for scourging, the second for beheading.

There were under them two praetors, or judges, who tried offences; two quaestors, who attended to the public buildings; and two censors, who had to look after the numbering and registering of the people in their tribes and centuries.

The consuls in general commanded the army, but sometimes, when there was a great need, one single leader was chosen and was called dictator.

Sometimes a dictator was chosen merely to fulfil an omen, by driving a nail into the head of the great statue of Jupiter in the Capitol.