The censors are the masters of the registration and they rank each as
they please; they may degrade a senator by striking him from the
senate-list, a knight by not registering him among the knights, and a
citizen by not placing his name on the registers of the tribes. It is
for them an easy means of punishing those whom they regard at fault
and of reaching those whom the law does not condemn. They have been
known to degrade citizens for poor tillage of the soil and for having
too costly an equipage, a senator because he possessed ten pounds of
silver, another for having repudiated his wife. It is this overweening
power that the Romans call the supervision of morals. It makes the
censors the masters of the city.
=The Senate.=--The Senate is composed of about 300 persons appointed
by the censor. But the censor does not appoint at random; he chooses
only rich citizens respected and of high family, the majority of them
former magistrates. Almost always he appoints those who are already
members of the Senate, so that ordinarily one remains a senator for
life. The Senate is an assembly of the principal men of Rome, hence
its authority.
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