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On the other hand, against this array of facts, are others just as certain, if not so cogent or so numerous. From the inscriptions painted on the walls in Pompeii, we know that in the first century A.D. men were recommended as quinquennales to the voters.
In Gabii a decree in honor of the house of Domitia Augusta was passed in the year when there were quinquennales. In addition to the fact that the emperors were sometimes chosen quinquennales, the consuls were too. M'. Acilius Glabrio, consul ordinarius of 152 A.D., was made patron of Tibur and quinquennalis designatus.
The only other men who attained the quinquennial rank in Praeneste were M. Petronius, and some man with the cognomen Minus, neither of whom appears anywhere else. A man with the cognomen Sedatus is quaestor in one year, and without holding other office is made praefect to the sons of Germanicus, Nero and Drusus, who were nominated quinquennales two years later.
Q. Decius Saturninus was a quattuorvir at Verona, but a quinquennalis at Aquinum. The quinquennial year seems to have been the year in which matters of consequence were more likely to be done than at other times. In 166 A.D. in Ostia a dedication was of importance enough to have the names of both the consuls of the year and the duoviri quinquennales at the head of the inscription.
That is, again, were quinquennales elected as the other city officials were, or were they appointed by Rome, or were they merely designated by Rome, and then elected in the proper and regular way by the citizens of the towns?
These are both good old Roman names, and stand out the more in contrast with Narius, Mestrius, Plestinus, and Fadius, the aediles and quaestors. Neither of these quinquennales had held any office in the five preceding years at all events. One of the two quaestors of the year 33 B.C. is a L. Cornelius.
The fact that the lex Iulia in 45 B.C. compelled the census to be taken everywhere else in the same year as in Rome shows at all events that the census had been taken in certain places at other times, whether with an implied supervision from Rome or not, and the later positive evidence that the emperors and members of the imperial family, and consuls, who were nominated quinquennales, always appointed praefects in their places, who with but an exception or two were not city officials previously, certainly tends to show that at some time the quinquennial office had been influenced in some way from Rome.
There are fragments left of several municipal fasti; the one which gives the longest unbroken list is that from Venusia, which gives the full list of the city officials of the years 34-29 B.C., and the aediles of 35, and both the duovirs and praetors of the first half of 28 B.C. In 29 B.C., L. Oppius and L. Livius were duoviri quinquennales.
We know that whether the officials of the municipal governments were praetors, aediles, duovirs, or quattuorvirs, at intervals of five years their titles either were quinquennales, or had that added to them, and that this title implied censorial duties.
The appointment of outside men as an honor would then be a survival of the custom of having outsiders for quinquennales, in many places doubtless a revival of a custom which had been in abeyance, to honor the imperial family. In Praeneste, as in other colonies, it seems reasonable that Rome would want to keep her hand on affairs to some extent.
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