Editing Roman roads (section)

===Changes under Augustus===
The governing structure was changed by [[Augustus]], who in the course of his reconstitution of the urban administration, both abolished and created new offices in connection with the maintenance of public works, streets, and [[Roman aqueduct|aqueducts]] in and around Rome. The task of maintaining the roads had previously been administered by two groups of minor magistrates, the ''quattuorviri'' (a board of four magistrates to oversee the roads inside the city) and the ''duoviri'' (a board of two to oversee the roads outside the city proper) who were both part of the ''[[collegia]]'' known as the ''[[vigintisexviri]]'' (literally meaning "Twenty-Six Men").<ref name="SmithDictionaryAntiquities"/>

Augustus, finding the ''collegia'' ineffective, especially the boards dealing with road maintenance, reduced the number of magistrates from 26 to 20. Augustus abolished the ''duoviri'' and later granted the position as superintendent (according to Dio Cassius) of the road system connecting Rome to the rest of Italy and provinces beyond. In this capacity he had effectively given himself and any following emperors a paramount authority which had originally belonged to the city censors. The ''quattuorviri'' board was kept as it was until at least the reign of [[Hadrian]] (117 to 138 AD).<ref name="SmithDictionaryAntiquities"/> Furthermore, he appointed praetorians to the offices of "road-maker" and assigning each one with two [[lictor]]s, making the office of curator of each of the great public roads a perpetual magistracy rather than a temporary commission.

The persons appointed under the new system were of [[Roman Senate|senator]]ial or [[Equestrian order|equestrian]] rank, depending on the relative importance of the roads assigned to them. It was the duty of each curator to issue contracts for the maintenance of his road and to see that the contractor who undertook said work performed it faithfully, as to both quantity and quality. Augustus also authorized the construction of [[sanitary sewer|sewers]] and removed obstructions to traffic, as the ''aediles'' did in Rome.<ref name="SmithDictionaryAntiquities"/>

It was in the character of an imperial curator (though probably armed with extraordinary powers) that [[Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo|Corbulo]] denounced the ''[[magistratus]]'' and ''mancipes'' of the Italian roads to [[Tiberius]].<ref name="SmithDictionaryAntiquities"/> He pursued them and their families with fines and imprisonment and was later rewarded with a consulship by [[Caligula]], who also shared the habit of condemning well-born citizens to work on the roads. Under the rule of Claudius, Corbulo was brought to justice and forced to repay the money which had been extorted from his victims.