The consuls, praetors, aediles, tribunes, and quaestors retained substantially their previous formal powers; nevertheless their position was totally altered.

It was the political idea lying at the foundation of the republic that the Roman empire was identified with the city of Rome, and in consistency with it the municipal magistrates of the capital were treated throughout as magistrates of the empire.

In the monarchy of Caesar that view and this consequence of it fell into abeyance; the magistrates of Rome formed thenceforth only the first among the many municipalities of the empire, and the consulship in particular became a purely titular post, which preserved a certain practical importance only in virtue of the reversion of a higher governorship annexed to it.

The fate, which the Roman community had been wont to prepare for the vanquished, now by means of Caesar befell itself; its sovereignty over the Roman empire was converted into a limited communal freedom within the Roman state.

That at the same time the number of the praetors and quaestors was doubled, has been already mentioned; the same course was followed with the plebeian aediles, to whom two new "corn-aediles" (-aediles Ceriales-) were added to superintend the supplies of the capital.