We have already spoken of the institution of the censorship (in 443 B.C.9 as an incident in the struggle between the orders, which constituted a patrician victory in so far as the new office was confined originally to patricians. When the office became open to plebeians is uncertain, but we hear of a plebeian censor for the first time in 351 B.C. and soon afterwards, the same rule applied as to the consulship, that one of the two colleagues must be a plebeian.
The original purpose of the new magistracy was clearly to relieve the supreme magistrates of one of the duties that they had previously performed, that of taking the census, and at first the censorship appears to have been comparatively unimportant. But the control which it gave over the whole moral life of the people, and especially the power of appointing senators, made it, in the end, an office of even greater dignity than the consulship itself, and it was, with hardly an exception, held only by men of consular rank. The election was held in the comitia centuriata under the presidency of a consul, but the censor had no imperium, and, though he sat on the curule chair, he did not have the fasces borne before him. On the other hand the eminence of his office became apparent when he died, for he alone of all magistrates was buried in the full purple toga which had been the emblem of royalty. The censors also differed from other magistrates in that they were not elected annually; they were only elected for the purpose of taking the census, a duty which ended with the lustrum, or ceremonial purification of the people, and they had to lay down their office when this was completed, or at the latest eighteen months after their election. Then no others were appointed until a new census was to be taken, the usual interval being four or, later, five years. Re-election was forbidden.
The census was far from being a mere numbering; it was the registration of the whole people in their divisions of tribes and centuries, and its purpose was chiefly military and financial. Incidentally it was also political, for the centuries and the tribes were both voting units. For the purpose of registration the censors summoned the members of the centuriate assembly, that is the arm-bearing citizens, to meet them in the Campus Martius, and each citizen, or at least each head of a family, had to make a return of the members of his family and his property; this latter return was needed partly for the purposes of assessing the tributum, and partly because the divisions in the centuriate assembly depended upon wealth. In addiction the censors held a separate review of the eighteen centuries of equites in the forum. The supervision over the morals of the community, the famous regimen morum, was an outcome of the census. In the lists which they made up the censors could affix a nota or mark of censure against a man's name if they disapproved of his conduct, and there was no restriction as to the reasons for which they might express this disapproval. It might be some action in his private life, such as luxurious living, or divorcing a wife without taking the opinion of a family council; it might be the following of a disgraceful trade; desertion or cowardice in the army, or what the censors considered improper conduct as a magistrate. The censors appear to have published the principles on which they would act in an edict and, no doubt, the views of different individuals varied, although the general attitude was that the censors were there to uphold the ancient simplicity and sternness of Roman manners. The only safeguards against abuse of these great powers were that the reason for the nota must always be given and that the two colleagues must concur in affixing it. It was also usual to summon the person affected to defend himself, but there was no formal trial.
The effect of the nota was to remove the censured person from the tribe to which he belonged, usually to remove him altogether from the tribes, so that he became an aerarius, or citizen without the right of voting and subject to a poll-tax, but apparently the result might sometimes only be to degrade the citizen from a "rustic" to one of the four "urban" tribes, which were less honourable, partly because they contained all the freedmen. In the case of equites the censure was expressed by the command "sell your horse", which implied dismissal.
The revision of the list of senators was no part of the census, but perhaps the most important power to all, and here the censorial nota meant the exclusion of a person otherwise entitled to a seat. In addition to affixing the nota the censors might punish conduct they considered reprehensible by increasing the amount of tributum a man had to pay, either directly by multiplying the usual thousandth or indirectly by valuing certain property, especially objects of luxury, at a much higher figure than their real value.
Of the financial duties of the censors, especially the giving of public contracts, we have already spoken. In connection with these functions they had, no doubt, incidentally to decide disputes, for the Roman principle was that where the state was concerned the magistrate decided, not the courts. But it appears that, in the late republic at any rate, if a dispute occurred between individuals, the censors could appoint a iudex or recuperatores.
As to criminal jurisdictions, the censors did, it seems, sometimes levy fines in connection with their various duties –the idea that a magistrate should not be able to do so was repugnant to the Roman conceptions of magisterial dignity– but as they could not summon the people it is probable that their fines were always below the amount at which provocatio became possible.
The regular interval between censorship was, as we have said, four o five years, but there were many cases in which longer periods were allowed to elapse, and appointment became very irregular after Sulla. After 22 B.C. censors were never again appointed, though the emperors continued the supervision of morals and occasionally took the title of censor. The fact was that the census had become unwieldy in the late republic when the number of citizens had greatly increased, and, in effect, it was only a compilation taken from individual lists made in the various municipalities. It was also unnecessary either for taxation, as tribute was no longer imposed on citizens, or for military purposes, now that the old citizen army had been replaced by a professional force voluntarily recruited.
The powers of the censorship were also disliked by the senate as a check on the power of the nobility and were no longer necessary to fill up the senate as, under Sulla's scheme, there were always sufficient ex-quaestors to take the vacant places.
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- The republican constitution
+ The republican constitution: Elements
+ The struggle between the orders
+ The assemblies of the people
+ Characteristics and procedure of roman assemblies
+ The Senate
+ The consulate
+ The praetorship
+ The aedileship
+ The quaestorship
+ The tribunate
+ The dictatorship
+ The minor magistrates
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Source:
Historical introduction to the study of Roman law, H. F. Jolowicz, pages 50 - 52.
