Creation of The Rank
The census was first instituted by Servius Tullius, sixth king of Rome. After the abolition of the monarchy and the founding of the Republic, the consuls had responsibility for the census until 443 BC. In 442 BC, no consuls were elected, but military tribunes with consular power were appointed instead; this was a move by the plebeians to try to attain higher magistracies: only patricians could be elected consuls, while some military tribunes were plebeians. To avoid the possibility of plebeians obtaining control of the census, the patricians removed the right to take the census from the consuls and tribunes, and appointed for this duty two magistrates, called censores (censors), elected exclusively from the patricians in Rome.
The magistracy continued to be controlled by patricians until 351 BC, when Gaius Marcius Rutilus was appointed the first plebeian censor. Twelve years afterwards in 339 BC, one of the Publilian laws required that one censor had to be a plebeian. Despite this, no plebeian censor performed the solemn purification of the people (the "lustrum"; Livy Periochae 13) until 280 BC. In 131 BC, for the first time, both censors were plebeians.
There were two censors, because the two consuls had previously taken the census together. If one of the censors died during his term of office, another was chosen to replace him, just as with consuls. This happened only once, in 393 BC. However the Gauls captured Rome in that lustrum (five-year period), and the Romans thereafter regarded such replacement as "an offense against religion". From then on, if one of the censors died, his colleague resigned, and two new censors were chosen to replace them.
Read more about this topic: Roman Censor
Famous quotes containing the words creation of, creation and/or rank:
“The creation of a world view is the work of a generation rather than of an individual, but we each of us, for better or for worse, add our brick to the edifice.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“There’s something wonderfully exciting about the quiet sing song of an aeroplane overhead with all the guns in creation lighting out at it, and searchlights feeling their way across the sky like antennae, and the earth shaking snort of the bombs and the whimper of shrapnel pieces when they come down to patter on the roof.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“A man is the prisoner of his power. A topical memory makes him an almanac; a talent for debate, disputant; skill to get money makes him a miser, that is, a beggar. Culture reduces these inflammations by invoking the aid of other powers against the dominant talent, and by appealing to the rank of powers. It watches success.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)