ad had them, as chief
magistrates, and not dictators,[191] and that such an arrangement was
more satisfactory. The Latin League had had a dictator[192] at its head
at some time,[193] and the fact that these two praetors are found at
the head of the league in 341 B.C. shows the deference to the more
progressive and influential cities of the league, where praetors were
the regular and well known municipal chief magistrates. Before Praeneste
was made a colony by Sulla, the governing body was a senate,[194] and
the municipal officers were praetors,[195] aediles,[196] and
quaestors,[197] as we know certainly from inscriptions. In the
literature, a praetor is mentioned in 319 B.C.,[198] in 216 B.C.,[199]
and again in 173 B.C. implicitly, in a statement concerning the
magistrates of an allied city.[200] In fact nothing in the inscriptions
or in the literature gives a hint at any change in the political
relations between Praeneste and Rome down to 90 B.C., the year in which
the lex Iulia was passed. If a dictator was ever at the head of the city
government in Praeneste, there are none of the proofs remaining, such as
are found in the towns of the Alban Hills, in Etruria, and in the medix
tuticus of the Sabellians. The fact that no trace of the dictator
remains either in Tibur or Praeneste seems to imply that these two towns
had better opportunities for a more rapid development, and that both had
praetors at a very early period.[201]

However strongly the weight of probabilities make for proof in the
endeavor to find out what the municipal government of Praeneste was,
there are a certain number of facts that can now be stated positively.
Before 90 B.C. the administrative officers of Praeneste were two
praetors,[202] who had the regular aediles and quaestors as assistants.
These officers were elected by the citizens of the place. There was
also a senate, but the qualifications and duties of its members are
uncertain. Some information, however, is to be derived from the fact
that both city officers and senate were composed in the main of the
local nobility.[203]

An important epoch in the history of Praeneste begins with the year 91
B.C. In this year the dispute over the extension of the franchise to
Italy began again, and the failure of the measure proposed by the
tribune M. Livius Drusus led to an Italian revolt, which soon assumed a
serious aspect. To mitigate or to cripple this revolt (the so-called
Social or Marsic war), a