As a colony, Praeneste has a different history from that of any other of the colonies founded by Sulla.  Because of her stubborn defence, and her partisanship for Marius, her walls were razed and her citizens murdered in numbers almost beyond belief.  Yet at a later time, Sulla with a revulsion of kindness quite characteristic of him, rebuilt the town, enlarged it, and was most generous in every way.  The sentiment which attached to the famous antiquity and renown of Praeneste was too strong to allow it to lie in ruins.  Further, in colonies the most characteristic officers were the quattuorviri.  Praeneste, again different, shows no trace of such officers.

Indeed, at all times during the history of Latium, Praeneste clearly had a city government different from that of any other in the old Latin League.  For example, before the Social War[178] both Praeneste and Tibur had aediles and quaestors, but Tibur also had censors,[179] Praeneste did not.  Lavinium[180] and Praeneste were alike in that they both had praetors.  There were dictators in Aricia,[181] Lanuvium,[182] Nomentum,[183] and Tusculum,[184] but no trace of a dictator in Praeneste.

The first mention of a magistrate from Praeneste, a praetor, in 319 B.C, is due to a joke of the Roman dictator Papirius Cursor.[185] The praetor was in camp as leader of the contingent of allies from Praeneste,[186] and the fact that a praetor was in command of the troops sent from allied towns[187] implies that another praetor was at the head of affairs at home.  Another and stronger proof of the government by two praetors is afforded by the later duoviral magistracy, and the lack of friction under such an arrangement.

There is no reason to believe that the Latin towns took as models for their early municipal officers, the consuls at Rome, rather than to believe that the reverse was the case.  In fact, the change in Rome to the name consuls from praetors,[188] with the continuance of the name praetor in the towns of the Latin League, would rather go to prove that the Romans had given their two chief magistrates a distinctive name different from that in use in the neighboring towns, because the more rapid growth in Rome of magisterial functions demanded official terminology, as the Romans began their “Progressive Subdivision of the Magistracy."[189] Livy says that in 341 B.C.  Latium had two praetors,[190] and this shows two things:  first, that two praetors were better adapted to circumstances than one dictator; second, that the majority of the towns had praetors, and had had them, as chief magistrates, and not dictators,[191] and that such an arrangement was more satisfactory.  The Latin League had had a dictator[192] at its head at some time,[193] and the fact that these two praetors are found at the head of the league in 341 B.C. shows the deference to the more progressive and influential cities of the league, where praetors were the regular and well known municipal chief magistrates.  Before