h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"A consul was the highest political office in Rome and there were two new consuls each year, both men needing to be 42. "

42?

*faints*

Yeah, odd that one. I didn't have the heart to check that fact out just incase it was wrong.

Striving for the goal of being definitively inaccurate?

Nah, I just couldn't bring myself to change it.

*it is right by the way*

Greetings and Salutations

Yes, it is right, but it's not very spectacular given the views held by most Romans (so don't faint). Compare it to the patron/client relationship and the mutual respectability benefits therein (it's not who you are but who you know).

It is indeed true. The age limits were introduced by Sulla around 81BC in order to stop young people gaining too much power too quickly (a move to reduce the threat of potential dictators).

Under Sulla's scheme a person had to follow a set path before they could seek election to consul: from the age of thirty they could be a quaestor, from thirty-nine they could be a praetor, and only after this could a person run for consul.