[526] I. 43. 2.
[527] IV. 16. 2.
[528] After the adoption of the as of an ounce weight in 217, sixteen asses of this standard were considered equivalent to a denarius or a drachma, which would give a rating of 160,000 asses for those who wore the cuirass. But the military pay was still reckoned at ten asses to the denarius (Pliny, N. H. xxxiii. 3. 45); the censors seem to have used the same ratio (Livy xxxix. 44. 2 f. compared with Plut. Cat. Mai. 18); and it is therefore highly probable that in this statement Polybius intended to express in drachmas the value of 100,000 asses. Taken in its entirety, the passage sufficiently proves that reference is to the highest class; the majority (οἱ πολλοί) of soldiers, he says, have breastplates, but those rated above 10,000 drachmas wear cuirasses. If, as Belot, Rév. écon. et mon. 77 ff., imagines, the sum of 100,000 asses fell below the rating of the lowest class, there would hardly have been a soldier without the cuirass.
[529] Gaius ii. 274. That registration was necessary is proved by Cic. Verr. II. i. 41. 104 ff. By the word “censi” Cicero does not mean to designate any group or division of citizens; he simply refers to the fact of registration. P. Annius Asellus, of whom he speaks, had not been registered, or in any case at that sum, and hence was not technically liable to the law; but the value of his estate could be ascertained by authority of a court of justice, according to Greenidge, Leg. Proced. 95 f. Mommsen held the opinion, on the contrary (Abhdl. d. Akad. d. Wiss. zu Berlin, 1863. 468 f.), that the incensi were absolutely free from the law.
[530] P. 85 above.
[531] VI (VII). 13. For his rating of 125,000 asses for the first class, see p. 89.
[532] N. 5 above.
[533] Dio Cass. lvi. 10. 2; Pseud. Ascon. 188.
[534] Cf. Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. iii. 249, n. 4; Greenidge, Leg. Proced. 95.
[535] The part containing this reference was not essentially later than the enactment of the Voconian law (p. 361).