Quaesitor

The quaesitor (Greek: κοιαισίτωρ, κυαισίτωρ) was a Late Roman/Byzantine police official of Constantinople, specifically a magistrate, responsible for controlling the flow of legal and illegal immigration into the city.[1] The office of the quaesitor was first established in 539 through the Novella 80 of Emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565), designed to deal with the arrival of unemployed people to Constantinople living as criminals or beggars.[1] One of his functions was to investigate people passing through Constantinople by determining their names, origins, and reasons for being in the city.[1] Furthermore, the quaesitor had the authority to deal with unemployed persons by forcing the physically fit among the unemployed to work in a public industry such as a bakery (if an unemployed person refused to work, he would be expelled from Constantinople).[1] The quaesitor was also granted judicial functions whereby his court dealt with certain types of crimes such as forgery.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Bury 1958, p. 337; Moatti 2013, p. 87.
  2. Bury 1958, p. 337.

Sources

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