Roman Censors - Abolition

Abolition

The censorship continued in existence for 421 years, from 443 BC to 22 BC; but during this period many lustra passed by without any censor being chosen at all. According to one statement, the office was abolished by Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Although the authority on which this statement rests is not of much weight, the fact itself is probable, since there was no census during the two lustra which elapsed from Sulla's dictatorship to Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey)'s first consulship (82–70 BC), and any strict "imposition of morals" would have been found inconvenient to the aristocracy that supported Sulla.

If the censorship was done away with by Sulla, it was at any rate restored in the consulship of Pompey and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Its power was limited by one of the laws of the tribune Publius Clodius Pulcher (58 BC), which prescribed certain regular forms of proceeding before the censors in expelling a person from the Roman Senate, and required that the censors be in agreement to exact this punishment. This law, however, was repealed in the third consulship of Pompey in 52 BC, on the urging of his colleague Caecilius Metellus Scipio, but the office of the censorship never recovered its former power and influence.

During the civil wars which followed soon afterwards, no censors were elected; it was only after a long interval that they were again appointed, namely in 22 BC, when Augustus caused Lucius Munatius Plancus and Aemilius Lepidus Paullus to fill the office. This was the last time that such magistrates were appointed; the emperors in future discharged the duties of their office under the name of Praefectura Morum ("prefect of the morals").

Some of the emperors sometimes took the name of censor when they held a census of the Roman people; this was the case with Claudius, who appointed the elder Vitellius as his colleague, and with Vespasian, who likewise had a colleague in his son Titus. Domitian assumed the title of "perpetual censor" (censor perpetuus), but this example was not imitated by succeeding emperors. In the reign of Decius we find the elder Valerian nominated to the censorship, but Valerian was never actually elected censor.