The cursus honorum (Latin "course of honours") was the sequential order of public offices held by aspiring politicians in both the Roman Republic and the early Empire. It was designed for men of senatorial rank. The cursus honorum comprised a mixture of military and political administration posts. Each office had a minimum age for election. There were minimum intervals between holding successive offices and laws forbade repeating an office. These rules were altered and flagrantly ignored in the course of the last century of the Republic. For example, Gaius Marius held consulships for five years in a row between 104 BC and 100 BC. Officially presented as opportunities for public service, the offices often became mere opportunities for self-aggrandizement. The reforms of Lucius Sulla required a ten year period between holding offices or before another term in the same office.
In Rome, there was nothing resembling the modern political party. Candidates were elected based on their familial and personal reputations. Candidates from older, established families were sometimes favoured because they could use their ancestor's feats as electoral propaganda. Although political parties were not officially established, in the mid to late Republic, factions such as the populares and optimates were developed. These factions lacked any real structure, just representing groups of individuals that either favored the Popular assemblies or the senate as the chief governing body.
To have held each office at the youngest possible age (in suo anno, "in his year") was considered a great political success, since to miss out on a praetorship at 39 meant that one could not become consul at 42. Cicero expressed extreme pride both in being a novus homo ("new man") who became consul though none of his ancestors had ever served as a consul, and in having become consul "in his year".
