CENSOR (from censere, to estimate), the title of two magistrates of the highest importance in the Roman republic. It was their duty to take a census of the citizens, to estimate their property and impose taxes in proportion to what each possessed, and to punish offences not only against morality, but against the conventional requirements of Roman custom. They took cognizance of bad cultivation of the land, of the carrying on of any occupation which was considered disgraceful, of luxuriousness, of celibacy, and of many other matters of a similar kind. If the offender was a senator, they might remove him from the senate; if eques, they might take from him his horse, they might expel him from his tribe, and they might lower him to aerarian rank. There was, however, an appeal from their decisions to an assembly of the people; and they could only punish a citizen for some definite fault, which they were bound to declare in their list. The censors also appointed the princeps senatus, and filled up all vacancies in the senate. At first this was done at their own discretion, but afterwards they were controlled by the lex Ovinia, which bound them to choose ex-magistrates in the order of their rank. The censors also let out the taxes to farm; and they took charge of all public buildings, roads, and aqueducts, and undertook the construction of new public works....
At first the duration of the censorship was five years, but in 433 b.c. the dictator Mamercinus made a law restricting it to a year and a half. Upon the death of either censor the other resigned, and a new election was held. Originally patricians alone were eligible; but in 351 b.c. the plebeians were admitted. The censorship was instituted in 443 B.c.; and the office continued to the time of the emperors. Vespasian and his son took the title; and the last who bore it was the brother of Constantine. The emperor generally assumed censorial power under the title of morum proefecti.
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