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The censor was a magistrate in ancient Rome who was responsible for maintaining the census, supervising public morality, and overseeing certain aspects of the government's finances.[1]
Established under the Roman Republic, power of the censor was limited in subject matter but absolute within his sphere: in matters reserved for the censors, no magistrate could oppose his decisions, and only another censor who succeeded him could cancel those decisions. Censors were also given unusually long terms of office; unlike other elected offices of the Republic, which (excluding certain priests elected for life) had terms of 12 months or less, censors' terms were generally 18 months to 5 years (depending on the era). The censorate was thus highly prestigious, preceding all other regular magistracies in dignity if not in power and reserved with rare exceptions for former consuls. Attaining the censorship would thus be considered the crowning achievement of a Roman politician on the cursus honorum. However, the magistracy as a regular office did not survive the transition from the Republic to the Empire.
The censor's regulation of public morality is the origin of the modern meaning of the words censor and censorship.[2]
- ^ Suolahti, J. (1963) The Roman Censors: A Study on Social Structure (Helsinki)
- ^ "censorship | Etymology, origin and meaning of censorship by etymonline". www.etymonline.com.