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Quod privatus a populo petit, aut populus a privato, senatus ex aliqua civitate, qui judicet, datur, cui alternoe civitates rejectoe sunt. Quod vivis Romanus a siculo petit, siculus judex datur quod siculus a cive Romano, civis Romanus datur. Coeterarum rerum selecti judices ex civium Romanorum conventu proponi solent.

The praetors at an early date handed over their authority to other judges, chosen either from the citizens at large, or from the body of Judices Selecti, who were renewed every year.

In Sulla's time their number was increased to ten, and each was chairman of the quaestio which sat on one of the ten chief crimes, extortion, peculation, bribery, treason, coining, forgery, assassination or poisoning, and violence. As assessors he had the quaesitor or chief juror, and a certain number of the Judices Selecti of whom some account has been already given.

A prosecutor was said ferre judicem res, when he proposed to the accused person some one out of the judices selecti, before whom the case might be tried; if the accused person consented to the person named by prosecutor, then the judge was said convenisse, to have been agreed on. Sometimes the accused was allowed to select his own judge, judicem dicere.

The Consentes, so called because they were supposed to form the great council of heaven, consisted of twelve: Jupiter, Neptune, Apollo, Mars, Mercury, Vulcan, Juno, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, and Vesta. The Selecti were nearly equal to them in rank, and consisted of eight: Saturn, Pluto, Bacchus, Janus, Sol, Genius, Rhea, and Luna.

The family of the Roman gods continued to increase by adopting the divinities of the conquered nations, and more particularly by the introduction of those of Greece. The general division of the gods was twofold, the superior and inferior deities. The first class contained the Consentes and the Selecti; the second, the Indigetes and Semones.