Cursus Honorum age requirements

[Maximus183]

Regarding the political "ranks" or what have you, wouldn't it make more sense to drop the whole age limit concept? At least for some cultures like romans, greeks and such. It seems strange that for example, a roman General would be completely unable to reach a certain position in the senate because he's 35 years old, not 36. Changing these age limits is really easy as I'm sure you know, so is it something you guys could imagine looking at for future updates?

[Gilad]

You do realize that the Cursus Honorum was designed by Sulla with age requirements, right?

[Crappy]

Yep, historically there were age requirements for government positions, a lot like how, today, a US president has to be 35, a senator has to be 30, and a representative has to be 25.

[Dresden]

I would actually make the opposite argument, they might not make sense for some Barbarian cultures but they do for Rome at least.

Even before Sulla, there were the unwritten rules of the mos maiorum or "way of things," "way of the elders," however you want to translate it. Basically, the customs and traditions of the Republic. These customs had various expectations of age and other factors in dealing with the cursus honorum.

The fact that these old customs were ignore or flagrantly violated in the later Republic is one reason that conservatives wanted to codify the age requirements.

[m_1512]

What Gilad means that the age restrictions were put by Sulla, who is like hundred years ahead in the game.

[Dresden]

But those restrictions existed before Sulla, they were just not a codified set of rules. It was simply expected that you would wait until your appropriate age for certain offices. This was the same as not running for consul within a certain time after being consul. That was also not a codified law for many years, but was expected.

Those customs were broken on some occasions (and caused scandals). Eventually in the late Republic, generals like Pompey circumvented the system entirely.