Editing Roman roads (section)

===Costs and civic responsibilities===
The devolution to the censorial jurisdictions became a practical necessity, resulting from the growth of the Roman dominions and the diverse labors which detained the censors in the capital city. Certain ''ad hoc'' official bodies successively acted as constructing and repairing authorities. In Italy, the censorial responsibility passed to the commanders of the Roman armies and later to special commissioners, and in some cases perhaps to the local magistrates. In the provinces, the consul or praetor and his legates received authority to deal directly with the contractor.<ref name="SmithDictionaryAntiquities"/>

The care of the streets and roads within the Roman territory was committed in the earliest times to the censors. They eventually made contracts for paving the street inside Rome, including the [[Clivus Capitolinus]], with lava, and for laying down the roads outside the city with gravel. [[Sidewalk]]s were also provided. The [[aedile]]s, probably by virtue of their responsibility for the freedom of traffic and policing the streets, co-operated with the censors and the bodies that succeeded them.<ref name="SmithDictionaryAntiquities"/>

It would seem that in the reign of [[Claudius]] the [[quaestor]]s had become responsible for the paving of the streets of Rome or at least shared that responsibility with the [[Quattuorvir|''quattuorviri viarum'']].<ref name="SmithDictionaryAntiquities"/> It has been suggested that the quaestors were obliged to buy their right to an official career by personal outlay on the streets. There was certainly no lack of precedents for this enforced liberality, and the change made by Claudius may have been a mere change in the nature of the expenditure imposed on the quaestors.