None of the alleged exceptions to the rule, moreover, are pertinent.

When Tacitus (Ann.xi.

22) says that formerly in conferring magistracies no regard was had to age, and that the consulate and dictatorship were entrusted to quite young men, he has in view, of course, as all commentators acknowledge, the earlier period before the issuing of the -leges annales---the consulship of M.Valerius Corvus at twenty-three, and similar cases.

The assertion that Lucullus received the supreme magistracy before the legal age is erroneous; it is only stated (Cicero, Acad.
pr.i.

1) that on the ground of an exceptional clause not more particularly known to us, in reward for some sort of act performed by him, he had a dispensation from the legal two years' interval between the aedileship and praetorship--in reality he was aedile in 675, probably praetor in 677, consul in 680.