The events which led up to the creation of the first praetorship in 367 B.C. have already been described. The new magistrate was to take over the duties hitherto performed by the consuls with respect to civil jurisdiction. This, it may as well be noted at once, does not mean that the praetor was a judge in our sense of the word. A Roman civil trial, until well on into the empire, always took place in two stages, the first of which alone was the concern of the jurisdictional magistrate. This was the stage in iure, in which only the preliminaries and especially the issue between the parties was settled. It was in the second stage, apud iudicem, that the actual trial took place and the issue raised was decided, the judge (iudex) in this stage being, not a magistrate, but a private person appointed for that purpose.
It is this division of functions between the magistrate and the iudex which alone makes it possible to understand how the Romans were able to manage for so long with a single jurisdictional magistrate, for it was not until about 242 B.C. that a second praetor was appointed and a division of duties made, one praetor superintending the jurisdiction between citizens (praetor urbanus) and the other that between foreigners or between citizens and foreigners and hence known as praetor qui inter peregrinos ius dicit, or more shortly praetor peregrinus ("foreign" praetor).
