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Patrician Censors 218-50 B.C.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

R. Develin
R. Develin*
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania
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Extract

In a recent note in Historia Léonie Hayne has written the following:

‘In his study of the censorship, Suolahti has drawn the conclusion that election to the censorship for patricians after 218 normally happened at the earliest opportunity after their consulship.’

Partly on the basis of this she suggests that Cn. Servilius Caepio, cos. 141 and eventually censor in 125, may have suffered a repulse in the censorial elections of 131, having stood in tandem with Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus. Those elections, of course, produced the first all-plebeian censorial college.

Hayne, therefore, has used data on censors arranged in an extensive chronological framework in the middle of which stand the elections in question. My own attempts to present patterned data which may help to elucidate the phenomena of Roman politics have made me particularly aware of the necessity to arrange such data in compartments of defensible significance. So here I must object to the use of ‘after 218’ as a proper time reference for the evidence. The plebeian college of 131 would seem to present one significant point of division. This was in fact realized by Suolahti, who uses two periods, not one, namely 218-133 and 133-30, and who is much more cautious and much less specific about patricians. Yet, even so, one must be careful about assembling or describing the data in convenient periods. Perhaps this is especially so with the censorship, a position only filled once every five years in normal circumstances, so that to have a reasonable number of censors on which to base statistical conclusions, one must necessarily encompass a considerable span of time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 14 , 1980 , pp. 84 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1980

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References

1 Hayne, L. ‘The Censorship of 131’. Historia 27(1978), 234–5.Google Scholar I have made known the substance of my objection to her.

2 Develin, R.Patterns in Office-Holding 366–49 B.C. (Coll. Lat. 161, Bruxelles 1979).Google Scholar

3 Suolahti, J.The Roman Censors (Helsinki 1963), 573.Google Scholar

4 ‘Only a few of them [the censors 218–134] … rose to be censors in the first elections held after their consulships’ (569); ‘the patricians rose fairly quickly to censorships during this period, if no political reasons prevented them from doing so’ (572); ‘The censors during the years 218–133 then generally advanced according to seniority, although there were exceptions because of political factors or the merit of the applicant. The speed of the rise to the censorship always depended upon the available number of consulars’ (573); ‘During the following era, from 133 to 30, the censors rose somewhat more easily than they had done during the previous period’ (573).

5 569–73. with references to his earlier pages; cf. Develin, 20, 22.

6 Where not given, relevant sources may be found in Broughton, T.R.S.The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (2 vols.) (New York 1951–2) = MRR.Google Scholar

7 See Develin, 65, no. 42 for him. Age data on various other figures here mentioned may also be found in that work.

8 List of candidates at Livy 37.57.10.

9 Suolanti, 335.

10 The case of L. Iulius Caesar, cos. 90, cens. 89, falls in an altogether different time.

11 List of candidates at Livy 39.40.2.

12 List of candidates at Livy 43.14.1.

13 MRR 1.450.

14 Hayne 234.

15 MRR 1.499.

16 The background to this is discussed in my forthcoming work.

17 The censorships about which we cannot be sure are those of 64 and 61. In the period 130-54 (the censor of 50 was consul in 54) patricians were represented in 39 of 77 consular colleges, including the consulships of Cinna and Sulla.

18 Details and a reason for Scaurus‘ success, Suolahti 426–8; also 574. On the identification of Eburnus, MRR 1.550 n.3.