[1027] For the later mode of regarding this limitation see Liv. iv. 24 “grave esse iisdem per tot annos magna parte vitae obnoxios vivere.” But, if the tenure was fixed by the lex Aemilia (of the dictator Mamercus Aemilius, 434 B.C., Liv. l.c.), it originated before the censorship had become a dangerous power.
[1028] Liv. xxiii. 23 “nec censoriam vim uni permissam et eidem iterum.” The prohibition is attributed to a law of Marcius Rutilus Censorinus, censor 294 and 265 B.C. (Plut. Cor. 1; cf. Val. Max. iv. 1, 3); but it could not have been his work, at least as censor, for this official had not the jus rogandi. See Momms. Staatsr. i. p. 520.
[1029] It is Cicero’s business in the pro Cluentio (43, 122) to represent this divergence of view as a weakness in the censorship; cf. Liv. xlii. 10 (173 B.C.) “concors et e re publica censura fuit ... neque ab altero notatum alter probavit.” But it was a necessary condition of the continuance of the office in a free state.
[1030] Liv. ix. 34 “cum ita comparatum a majoribus sit ut comitiis censoriis nisi duo confecerint legitima suffragia, non renuntiato altero comitia differantur.”
[1031] Tradition attributed the origin of this role to a religions scruple, “quia eo lustro (in which a suffectus was appointed) Roma est capta: nec deinde unquam in demortui locum censor sufficitur” (Liv. v. 31).
[1032] Cicero mixes up the earlier and later functions in his pseudo-law, which expresses all the activities of the censors (de Leg. iii. 3, 7), “Censores populi aevitates, suboles, familias pecuniasque censento: urbis, tecta, templa, vias, aquas, aerarium, vectigalia tuento: populique partes in tribus discribunto: exin pecunias, aevitates, ordines partiunto: equitum peditumque prolem discribunto: caelibes esse prohibento: mores populi regunto: probrum in senatu ne relinquunto.”
[1033] Liv. ix. 30.
[1034] ib. xxiii. 22; see p. 193.
[1035] In the great sublectio after Cannae (216 B.C.) the ex-curule magistrates not already on the list were chosen in the order of their tenure of power; then the ex-aediles, ex-tribunes of the plebs and the quaestorii, lastly men of distinction who had held no magistracy (Liv. xxiii. 23).
[1036] Festus p. 246 “Ovinia tribunicia intervenit, qua sanctum est ut censores ex omni ordine optimum quemque jurati (Cod. curiati, Mommsen curiatim) in senatum legerent.” If “ex omni ordine” means “from every grade of the magistracy,” the second interpretation is necessary.