this responsibility. The portion of any street which passed a temple or public building was repaired by the aediles at the public expense. When a street passed between a public building or temple and a private house, the public treasury and the private owner shared the expense equally. No doubt, if only to secure uniformity, the personal liability of householders to execute repairs of the streets was commuted for a paving rate payable to the public authorities who were responsible from time to time. Changes under Augustus The governing structure was changed by Augustus, who in the course of his reconstitution of the urban administration, both abolished and created new offices in connection with the maintenance of public works, streets and aqueducts in and around Rome. The task of maintaining the roads had previously been administered by two groups of minor magistrates, the quattuorviri (a board of four magistrates to oversee the roads inside the city) and the duoviri (a board of two to oversee the roads outside the city proper) who were both part of the collegia known as the vigintisexviri (literally meaning "Twenty-Six Men"). Augustus, finding the collegia ineffective, especially the boards dealing with road maintenance, reduced the number of magistrates from 26 to 20. Completely abolishing the duoviri and later being granted the position as superintendent (according to Dio Cassius) of the road system connecting Rome to the rest of Italy and provinces beyond. In this capacity he had effectively given himself and any following Emperors a paramount authority which had originally belonged to the city censors. The quattuorviri board was kept as it was until at least the reign of Hadrian between 117 and 138 AD. Furthermore, he appointed praetorians to the offices of "road-maker" and assigning each one with two lictors. Also making the office of curator of each of the great public roads a perpetual magistracy rather than a temporary commission. The persons appointed under the new system were of senatorial or equestrian rank, depending on the relative importance of the roads assigned to them. It was the duty of each curator to issue contracts for the maintenance of his road and to see that the contractor who undertook said work performed it faithfully, as to both quantity and quality. Augustus also authorized the construction of sewers and removed obstructions to traffic, as the aediles did in Rome. It was in the character of