[447] Liv. l.c. “Idem hic annus censurae initium fuit, rei a parva origine ortae.”
[448] Liv. iv. 24. Mommsen indeed thinks (Staatsr. ii. p. 349) that this lex Aemilia first made the censorship an independent magistracy with a fixed tenure. It was probably an independent magistracy before, but with no fixed tenure. Hence the belief that the censors originally held office for five years, the period of the lustrum (Liv. l.c., cf. ix. 34).
[449] pp. 81, 102.
[450] Liv. iv. 43 (discord between the Patres and the Plebs) “exorta est, coepta ab duplicando quaestorum numero ... praeter duos urbanos quaestores duo ut consulibus ad ministeria belli praesto essent.” The tribunes demanded “ut pars quaestorum ... ex plebe fieret.” The compromise arrived at was that “quattuor quaestores promiscue de plebe ac patribus libero suffragio populi fierent.”
[451] ib. 54. The Plebs, indignant at the election of consuls in place of military tribunes, “eum dolorem quaestoriis comitiis simul ostendit, et ulta est, tunc primum plebeiis quaestoribus creatis: ita ut, in quattuor creandis, uni patricio K. Fabio Ambusto relinqueretur locus.” For the election at the comitia tributa see p. 102.
[452] p. 83 note 2.
[453] Liv. iv. 25. The principes plebis, in despair at the choice of the military tribunate always falling on Patricians, came to the conclusion that it was “ambitione artibusque” of the Patricians. Hence a tribunician measure “ne cui album in vestimentum addere petitionis liceret causa.” After great resistance “vicere tribuni ut legem perferrent.”
[454] “Principes plebis” (Liv. l.c.).
[455] ib. vi. 31 “conditiones impositae patribus, ne quis, quoad bellatum esset, tributum daret, aut jus de pecunia credita diceret.”
[456] ib. 35 “omnium igitur simul rerum, quarum immodica cupido inter mortales est, agri, pecuniae, honorum, discrimine proposito, conterriti patres, etc.”