CENSOR, (from censere to "see" or "perceive"),
one of the prime magistrates in ancient Rome.—Their
business was to register the effects of the Roman citi-
zens, to impose taxes in proportion to what each man
possessed, and to take cognizance or inspection of the
manners of the citizens. In consequence of this last
part of their office, they had a power to censure vice
or immorality by inflicting some public mark of igno-
miny on the offender. They had even a power to
create the princeps senatus, and to expel from the se-
nate such as they deemed unworthy of that office.
VOL. III.
This power they sometimes exercised without suffi-
cient grounds; and therefore, a law was at length
passed, that no senator should be degraded or disgrac-
ed in any manner, until he had been formally ac-
cused and found guilty by both the censors. It was also
a part of the censorian jurisdiction, to fill up the va-
cancies in the senate, upon any remarkable deficiency
in their number; to let out to farm all the lands, re-
venues, and customs, of the republic; and to contract
with artificers for the charge of building and repairing
all the public works and edifices both in Rome, and the
colonies of Italy. In all parts of their office, however,
they were subject to the jurisdiction of the people;
and an appeal always lay from the sentence of the
censors to that of an assembly of the people.
The first two censors were created in the year of
Rome 311, upon the senate's observing that the con-
suls were so much taken up with war, as not to have
time to look into other matters. The office continued
to the time of the emperors, who assumed the ceno-
rial power, calling themselves morum praefecti; though
Vespasian and his sons took the title of censors. De-
cius attempted to restore the dignity to a particular
magistrate. After this we hear no more of it, till
Constantine's time, who made his brother censor, and
he seems to have been the last that enjoyed the office.
The office of censor was so considerable, that for a
long time none aspired to it, till they had passed all
the rest; so that it was thought surprising that Crassus
should be admitted censor, without having been either
consul or praetor. At first the censors enjoyed their
dignity for five years, but in 420 the dictator Mamen-
tinus made a law restraining it to a year and an half,
which was afterwards observed very strictly. At first
one of the censors was elected out of a patrician, and
the other out of a plebeian family; and upon the death
of either, the other was discharged from his office,
and two new ones elected, but not till the next
lustrum. In the year of Rome 622, both censors were
chosen from among the plebeians; and after that time
the office was shared between the senate and people.
—After their election in the Comititia Centurialia, the
censors proceeded to the capitol, where they took an
oath not to manage either by favour or disaffection,
but to act equitably and impartially throughout the
whole course of their administration.
The republic of Venice still has a censor of the
manners of their people, whose office lasts six months.