§ 1. Kings were formerly Aediles, wealthy Curators of public works. The ostentation of Barbarians displayed itself in the masses of pyramids, the wonders of hanging gardens, and cities rapidly constructed. But among those cultivated toward humanity and civil government, the Aedileship was occupied with more useful and necessary construction. They gradually built, enlarged, and fortified cities; undertook the construction of citadels, bridges, roads, aqueducts, and sewers; and, whether from superstition or piety, of temples and lordly houses for themselves. Hence those immense subterranean works at Rome, strong against so many inundations of waters, fires, and collapses.
§ 2. The Aediles of the Plebs were assistants of the Tribunes. Among their other offices, however, they had care of sacred and civil buildings, which was also common to the Curule Aediles, so that they preserved temples, theaters, stadia, porticoes, forums, the walls themselves, and Basilicas. They produced games. At times they undertook care of private buildings. Livy, book 6: “And Rome at the same time began both to increase in population and to rise everywhere in buildings, the state assisting the expenditures and the Aediles exacting the work as a public service,” and so forth.
§ 3. This was pernicious in the Roman Aedileship: abandoning useful things, they incurred excessive expenditure upon games. For by this means they won the poor commons to themselves, and very many examples of prodigality are found everywhere. Accordingly, under the Emperors, as all things gradually depended upon the Prince, that madness ceased.
§ 4. In place of the Aediles there was afterwards instituted the Curator of Public Works. There were very many public works at Rome: the Circus, walls, Castrensian Amphitheater, Viminal Field, Campus Martius, Harbor, Baths, Aqueducts, warehouses, stables, public post, bridges, roads, Basilicas, obelisks, Libraries, Groves, stadia, Nymphaea, pictures and statues, Arches, mills, forums, meeting-halls, columns, temples, and shrines. In the provinces a third part of the revenues was expended upon the walls and baths of the cities. There was another Curator of Cities, for he handled money, and his office belonged to quaestorian dignity.
§ 5. To the Aediles belonged the care of those who were Curators of the Channel of the Tiber and of the Sewers. Under them were the Four Men for the Care of Roads and the Curators of roads outside the city. There was also the man afterwards called Count of the Channels, whose office was to care for the aqueducts, which they called formae.
§ 6. Formerly all took care that public works should be magnificent and beyond a private scale. All were bound to contribute toward them, although Senators were sometimes excepted, book 5 in the Theodosian Code.
A Curator bound not only himself but also his heir; indeed, so that the works would be solid, he was liable for a defect within fifteen years. It was forbidden that anyone inscribe his name unless he constructed the work at his own expense. It was not permitted for a private person to dwell in public buildings. A new work ought not be begun unless the old one is completed. Accordingly, the Aedile can apply money bequeathed for a new work to restoring an old one, provided that it is one of the public works.