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CHAPTER XV.

THE CENSORSHIP OF METELLUS.

B.C. 131-130.

THERE WAS a census either in в.c. 131 or B.c. 130. The censors were Q. Pompeius and Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus. The office of censor originally belonged to the consuls as the representatives of the kingly power which had been abolished. When the business of the consuls increased, the censorship was transferred to two magistrates named Censors, and both were patricians. But as this change was not made until the establishment of the Tribuni militares consulari potestate or consulari imperio (B.c. 443), it has been suggested, and it is a probable conjecture, that one object in establishing the censorship as a distinct office, was to separate the taking of the census and the religious duties, which were connected with the Lustrum, from this new office of Tribuni militares to which a plebeian was eligible, and thus to keep it in the hands of the patricians. In в c. 351 we read of the first plebeian censor being appointed, and twelve years later it was enacted by one of the Leges Publiliae that one of the censors must be a plebeian. This is apparently the meaning of the passage of Livy (viii. 12), though a difficulty has been raised about the reading of part of this passage. The first plebeian censor who celebrated the Lustrum was Cn. Domitius (B.C. 280). Pompeius and Metellus were, as far as we know, the first two plebeian censors. The number of heads registered at this census was 317,823, but there is some variation in the manuscripts in the four last figures. These numbers of heads registered represent the number of citizens who were within the military age (Chap. v.).

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The reading of homilies or the preaching of sermons does not seem to have been part of the duty of the ordinary priests at Rome, but the censors in performing the Lustrum discharged a religious duty and sometimes accompanied it with a sermon. The text of Metellus was on the duty of marriage. In the Punic and other wars a large part of the male population perished, and since the destruction of Carthage the wars in Spain had carried off much of the manhood of Italy. The increase of the slaves also employed in agriculture had checked the growth of the free population, and there must have been at this time a great excess of women within the Roman territory and among the dependent Italian states, whose males served in the Roman armies. No antient writer has thrown any light on the question of the condition of the Italian women, who in consequence of the loss of men in the continual wars of Rome must have greatly exceeded the male sex. The women, no doubt, worked in the fields as women now do in some of the continental states of Europe, where there is a great demand for soldiers, and many women must have lived and died husbandless and childless. Others would leave the country for Rome and the Italian towns, where they would hardly find any other means of living than by prostitution. Where prostitution is common, as, for instance, in the large towns of England, the inducements of the male to seek a wife are diminished. It was to cure this unwillingness of men to take wives that Metellus made his address to the Roman citizens. There is no authority for saying that he proposed a law to compel men to marry, nor can the statement of Livy be correct that Metellus expressed an opinion that all men should be compelled to marry. This famous speech was afterwards read by the Emperor Augustus in the Roman Senate at the time when he was proposing his law on marriage. Part of this speech is preserved by Gellius, but he has perhaps erroneously assigned it to Metellus Numidicus. It was, as Gellius reports, an exhortation to marriage. Metellus addressing the people said, "If, Quirites, we could do without wives, we should all avoid this trouble, but since nature has so arranged it that we can neither live very happily with them nor live in any way without them,

we ought to have regard to the lasting interests of the state rather than to our own brief satisfaction. Great is the power of the immortal gods, but we cannot expect them to be better disposed towards us than our own parents are. Now parents by their testament disinherit children if they persist in doing wrong. What then can we continue to expect from the immortal gods, if we do not put an end to bad principles ? It is reasonable that the gods should show their favour to those only who are not their own enemies. The immortal gods are bound to approve of virtue, not to give it to us."

The censors had the duty of making out the list of the senators (lectio senatus), or in other words of determining who should be members of that body. The traditional doctrine was that the deliberative body named the Roman Senate was appointed by the kings and that the vacancies were filled by them. The consuls, who succeeded to the kingly power, originally held the census; and it may be assumed that at every census they made out a list of the Senate, though we have no evidence for this as to the oldest times of the republic. But we have the fact, or the belief of the Romans, which itself is a fact, that the consuls on the establishment of the republic appointed men to fill those places in the Senate which the cruelty of the last king had made vacant, and thus it is said that the Senate was restored to its traditional number of three hundred. It is certain that the Roman Senate never filled up the vacancies in its own body, that a man did not obtain admission to the Senate by birth, and that vacancies were not filled up nor admission obtained by the votes of any other body, either of Curiae, Gentes, or popular assembly. The magistrates, first the consuls, and then the censors alone had the power of naming a senator from the number of those who were duly qualified. It is impossible to say what rules determined the choice of the magistrates in the earliest periods, but it is conformable to Roman habits and the practice of later times to suppose that they followed certain rules, and that they were left to their own discretion in applying these rules. It appears from a passage of Festus that after the establishment of the censorship and the enactment of a Lex Ovinia, the date of

which is uncertain, the duty of the censors was to choose the best men out of the body of those who were eligible, and the censors took an oath to discharge this duty truly; if we accept Meyer's skilful and almost certain emendation of the passage of Festus. The obligation of an oath was no trifling matter in the old Roman system; it was a solemn ceremony which secured a faithful discharge of duty to a man's best ability. The expression 'the best men would exclude men of bad character, even if they were otherwise qualified. In the times when we have something like historical certainty, we know that the senators were eligible only from those who had held a magistracy, and who during their term of office and by virtue of their office had the right to sit in the assembly of the Senate. It is not certain what the condition of such magistrates was after their year of office had expired and before they were made senators by being entered on the censors' lists. One opinion, for which there is some authority, is that they sat in the Senate and had the right of speaking. The lowest office which qualified a man for a place in the Senate was the quaestorship. Thus the vote of the people, which made a man a magistrate qualified him to be a senator, but it did not make him a senator. The making of a senator was the function of the censors when they succeeded to this part of the office of the consuls. It was determined by lot, which according to Roman notions was by the will of the gods, which of the censors should exercise the 'lectio senatus,' or the naming of those who should be senators until the next census. There is no doubt that it was usual for the censor to retain on the list all existing members of the Senate, but as he could eject those whom he considered to be unfit to be senators, it follows that in theory the senators only held their place for the period between one Lustrum and another, though practically they might sit for life. The censor who exercised the 'lectio,' it is sometimes said, must have the assent of his colleague to all that he did. It is at least certain that one censor could not remove a man from the Senate without the consent of his colleague. But if the censors agreed, they could deprive any man of his senatorian rank, and the senator had no appeal.

But he might be restored to his rank by the next censors, if they chose to do so.

Such a power seems to us very extravagant, and it was probably sometimes abused for party purposes or the gratification of a malicious temper; but it is impossible to deny that the censors had this power, when we have as good evidence for it as for any thing in Roman history. We know by our own experience that constitutional forms and powers must not be estimated according to the letter. They are modified and changed by opinion and circumstances. It was necessary that there should be some way of filling up vacancies in the Senate and bringing new members into it. In the Roman system we could not devise any better means than those which were used. The power to regulate the list of senators was given to two magistrates, who had filled the highest offices in the state and had attained mature age. It was wise to let them act on their own responsibility, under the influence of all the motives which the possession of so dignified an office and so great a power could not fail to produce in an honest man; and even a dishonest man would be obliged to use some caution and show some respect to opinion. The Romans retained, as we have seen, an important function of the kingly office when they gave a magistratus the power of appointing a man to be a member of the Senate. But they also gave what the kings, we must assume, had also, the power of purging the Senate of its unworthy members. If we could discover some means of ridding our national councils of notoriously bad men, it would be a great political improvement. But modern ideas and habits forbid the existence of the censorial office, except in some countries where it limits. the freedom of printing.

When the censor had made out his list of the Senate, it was publicly read, and as we know, in some cases, before the Rostra, and thus all Rome knew who were the senators till the next Lustrum. Those who were omitted from the list were said to be passed over (praeteriti), which is a general expression; but it was particularly applied to those who had become qualified to be senators since the last Lustrum and had not been included in the censor's list; while the phrase

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