40 ON THY PROBABLE ORIGIN 
Twenty-five jugera of land was the qualification 
which a plebian must possess in order to be 
elected to this office, which descended here- 
ditarily and could at first be held only by those 
who were not engaged in commerce. The busi- 
ness of the curia was the management of the 
internal affairs of the city. The Italian munici- 
pia had magistrates called Duumviri (generally 
two, as the name implies, sometimes four) an- 
nually chosen from and by the curia, who had 
jurisdiction in civil causes of small amount, and 
were charged with the maintenance of order; 
but in the provincial cities this magistracy did 
not exist, except where a city possessed the Jus 
Italicum according to Savigny. Whether this 
was the ground of the distinction or not, it is 
certain that few cities of western Europe, except 
those of Spain, hada Duumvir. His place was 
supplied partly by the Principalis, the oldest 
decurion on the roll, who presided over the 
curia, but without jurisdiction, partly by the 
Roman governor, who exercised an appellate 
jurisdiction over the decisions of the Duumviri, 
and in the first instance, in person or by his 
delegates, in cities where no Duumvir existed. 
The Defensor, who had been originally appointed 
to defend the plebeian citizens against the ty- 
ranny of the curia,* gradually acquired the 
* Savigny, p. 69, of Cathcart’s translation. 
