Pompeii
“He had been elected by his fellow citizens to serve for a year as one of the pair of duoviri, the ‘two men’ who were the most senior officials in the town. Although his tombstone does not mention it, he must earlier have been elected to the other annual office of ‘aedile’ (aedilis). For that junior position not only gave a man almost automatic entry to the local town council (the ordo of decurions) for life, but also allowed him to stand for the higher office. No one, in other words, could be d...uumvir (the correct singular form of duoviri) without having been an aedile first. Only one position in the town was more prestigious than that of the regular duoviri. Every five years the duoviri had the extra task of enrolling the new members of the council and updating the list of local citizens, a responsibility reflected in the special title duoviri quinquennales. These men were the really big figures in the town. One, whom we shall meet later in this chapter, had been duumvir five times, including two stints as quinquennalis.MoreLess
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