Roman Public Life

by A. H. J. Greenidge

The financial examination at each census, which had as its object the rating for the tributum, was based on the returns of the last scrutiny. There was, therefore, some means of checking the declarations now made on oath by each head of a family, and in doubtful cases external evidence must have been taken. The returns were made in accordance with the instructions of a general formula (lex censui censendo) which the censors had published;[1044] but their general conditions must always have been the same. First came a declaration of the size of the property, then of its value. But the estimate of the individual owner need not be accepted by the censors; they often attached an exaggerated estimate to articles of luxury,[1045] or expressed their disapprobation of social or moral offences by an arbitrary and excessive rating of the goods of the offenders.[1046]

All the property thus assessed must be the object of quiritarian ownership. Originally it had been but the land and the animals associated with it (res mancipi),[1047] such objects as had been conveyed by mancipation, and for the evidence of the transfer of which from hand to hand the mancipation witness could be summoned. But the growing mercantile community had to take account of movables, and throughout the historical period all objects of property, corporeal or incorporeal, which constituted pecunia in the later sense of the word, were subject to valuation and taxation.[1048] After the time when direct taxation ceased in Italy (167 B.C.) the valuation was no longer made for the tributum; but property was still for a time the determinant of the kinds of military service and voting rights, and the censors had still to scrutinise the professions of the assessed, although the scrutiny was perhaps conducted with less rigour than before.

As it was the head of the family alone that could give an account of property, so it was to him that the censor put the requisite questions as to the persons dependent on his care. The respondent gave not only his own name, his father’s and his age, but made similar declarations about his son, his daughter, and his wife.[1049] Inquiries about the female members of the family were chiefly undertaken on moral grounds; they were of no importance for the work of registration, whose object was to assign voting rights and military burdens. Of the three subdivisions of the Roman state—the curia, the tribe, the century—the first was not considered by the censor, for the curia, like the gens, was inherited. The assignment of the tribe varied at different periods. If there was never a time in the history of the censorship when it had been confined to landholders,[1050] the possessor of an allotment was naturally registered in the tribus which contained his plot of ground, the non-possessor in that wherein he dwelt. But, by the year 312 B.C., the landless citizens had already been confined to the four urban tribes; the radical censor of that year distributed them even over the country tribes, to increase the voting power of this forensis factio;[1051] but in 304 B.C. the landless proletariate was again confined to the tribus urbanae,[1052] and hence arose the permanent distinction between the more honourable country and the less distinguished city tribe. As a matter of fact, this distinction between the landed and the landless citizen could not continue when all property, personal as well as real, became of equal value at the census, and membership of the tribe became practically hereditary. But it was a heredity which might be broken by the censor at every period of registration. He might, as we shall see, arbitrarily transfer an individual from his paternal country tribe to one of the four urban divisions, which, partly from historical reasons, partly because they contained the freedmen, were accounted less distinguished.

The distribution into centuries naturally followed the distinctions of property and age which qualified for those bodies. The list which set forth this distribution was still pre-eminently an army list, but the table of seniors (tabulae seniorum) undoubtedly contained the names of those who were past the age of compulsory service. The sexagenarii, although the young bloods might object to their voting for a war in which they were not to share,[1053] or electing a general by whom they would not be led, still had the right of taking part in the deliberations of the comitia centuriata.

It is obvious that the complete census of tribes and centuries included every voting unit of Rome, and, in spite of the fact that an individual scrutiny of the aerarii may not have taken place,[1054] we must suppose that there was a tribal list of all the citizens which proved the right to vote at the comitia tributa and the concilium plebis. But it is almost certain that, when an historian mentions a census of Republican times, he is reproducing merely the army list,[1055] the vital element in registration for a military state. All under the military age are excluded, and it has even been concluded that in the historical lists the seniores themselves are not entered.[1056] The proletarii are potentially, and in a sense actually, members of the Roman army;[1057] but it is very questionable whether they appear in the Republican lists. It was, perhaps, not until the Principate that the census contained the names of all male Romans above the military age.[1058]

III. The recognitio equitum.—The word equites primarily and properly applied only to the citizen cavalry of 1800 men, serving on horses supplied by the state.[1059] These formed the centuriae equitum equo publico, and this class was the ordo equester in the strict sense.

It is true that equites had come to have a wider meaning than this. About the close of the fifth century, individuals possessing a certain census and not included in the equestrian centuries were permitted to serve as cavalry with their own horses.[1060] They were no definite body, but were selected for a particular service by the commander, if the censors had admitted their pecuniary qualification.[1061] The consequence was that the terms eques and even ordo equester were transferred to these potential knights, and came to specify all who possessed a certain census, which, in the Principate and probably in the later Republic, was 400,000 sesterces.[1062] The censorship was only concerned with this wider body of knights as the authority which proved the monetary qualification of its individual members. The only body of equites which it recognised and treated as a corporation was that of the eighteen centuries.

The review of the knights (equitum census,[1063] recognitio equitum[1064]) took place, not like that of the rest of the citizens in the Campus Martius, but in the Forum. The whole corps filed past the censor man by man, each knight leading his horse by the bridle, as the herald called his name.[1065] The first question considered by the censors was that of discharge. While the knights were still the cavalry of Rome, the service was a burden, and a burden that from the close of the second century of the Republic was made incompatible with a seat in the Senate.[1066] In the Gracchan period, as we have seen, ten years’ service had to be proved before the knight could claim his dismissal.[1067] The discharge was usually granted, if the conditions had been fulfilled, but the censors, as a penal measure, claimed the right of not allowing past service to count, and even of imposing additional service at the knight’s own expense.[1068] Ignominious discharge, before the completed term of service, was a consequence of military negligence, as shown, for instance, by the shabby condition of the public horse (impolitia),[1069] or of any moral blemish, which in other ranks of life would have entailed dismissal from the Senate or the tribes. The form of dismissal was “sell your horse” (vende equum), of retention “lead it on” (traduc equum).[1070] The censors’ final duty was to fill up the vacant gaps in the centuries. This was done by the enrolment, at their own discretion, of qualified members from the infantry (pedites).

This procedure was but one example of that wider censure which was directed against the citizen body at the time of its registration in the Campus Martius. This scrutiny was preceded by an edict in which the censors declared some of their moral canons—canons, we may believe, that were transmitted from college to college and seldom departed from—while they animadverted on new evils which they believed to be undermining the life of the state.[1071] The acts which called forth their censure may be conveniently considered under four heads.

(i.) Those concerned with family life and private relations. The father as the domestic magistrate or judge[1072] was wholly responsible for the conduct of the little world of the family, and the censor exercised his control over women vicariously through their husbands.[1073] The objects of censorian animadversion were the cruel punishment of slaves,[1074] the wrong done to a client, which had been formerly punished by pontifical law,[1075] the bad education of children, whether it took the form of undue harshness or of over-indulgence,[1076] and the non-performance of the sacra of the clan.[1077] The censors discountenanced celibacy,[1078] imposing additional taxation on persistent bachelors.[1079] They discouraged mésalliances such as unions between free-born citizens and freedwomen,[1080] and checked the legal freedom of divorce. In the usual marriage by consensus a mere repudiation on the part of the husband was sufficient to dissolve the tie;[1081] but the censors restrained a reckless exercise of this power, and we find a senator degraded for divorcing his wife without taking advice of the family council.[1082] They also punished bad husbandry, neglect of property,[1083] and luxurious living,[1084] and enforced good faith (fides) in the execution of informal contracts which were not yet protected by the sanctions of the civil law. This was especially the case with guardianship (tutela),[1085] but their scrutiny extended to all legal relations that were held to involve bona fides, such as those of partnership, mandate, and deposit.[1086]