He was successively quaestor to the Emperor Hadrian ( with double the usual salary ), tribune of the plebs, praetor, " praefectus aerarium Saturnii ", and " praefectus aerarium militarii ", before assuming the high annual office of Roman consul in 148.
32.
He was successively quaestor to the Emperor Hadrian ( with double the usual salary ), tribune of the plebs, praetor, " praefectus aerarium Saturnii ", and " praefectus aerarium militarii ", before assuming the high annual office of Roman consul in 148.
33.
These lists, insofar as they were connected with the finances of the state, were deposited in the aerarium, which was the temple of Saturn; but the regular depositary for all the archives of the censors was in earlier times the Atrium Libertatis, near the Villa publica, and in later times the temple of the Nymphs.
34.
Meanwhile, he obtained the sinecure of " scriba quaestorius ", a civil service position at the " aerarium " or Treasury, profitable enough to be purchased even by members of the " ordo equester " and not very demanding in its work-load, since tasks could be delegated to " scribae " or permanent clerks.
35.
During his consulship he passed a law ( " lex Junia Licinia " ) which enforced more strictly the provision of the " lex Caecilia Didia " that laws should be promulgated three " nundinae " before they were proposed to the " comitia ", and further enacted that, in order to prevent forgery, a copy of every proposed statute should be deposited before witnesses in the " aerarium ".
36.
The Roman historians Suetonius and Cassius Dio record that in 23 BC, Augustus prepared a " rationarium " ( account ) which listed public revenues, the amounts of cash in the " aerarium " ( treasury ), in the provincial " fisci " ( tax officials ), and in the hands of the " publicani " ( public contractors ); and that it included the names of the freedmen and slaves from whom a detailed account could be obtained.
37.
The expressions " tribu movere " and " aerarium facere, " regarded by Mommsen as identical in meaning ( " to degrade from a higher tribe to a lower " ), are explained by hospitium publicum ", who had become domiciled on Roman territory ( Lange ); only a class of degraded citizens, including neither the " cives sine suffragio " nor the artisans ( according to Johan Nicolai Madvig ); identical with the " capite censi " of the Servian constitution ( Belot, Greenidge ).
38.
A general view of these duties is briefly expressed in the following passage of Cicero : " " Censores populi aevitates, soboles, familias pecuniasque censento : urbis templa, vias, aquas, aerarium, vectigalia tuento : populique partes in tribus distribunto : exin pecunias, aevitates, ordines patiunto : equitum, peditumque prolem describunto : caelibes esse prohibento : mores populi regunto : probrum in senatu ne relinquunto . " " This can be translated as : " The Censors are to determine the generations, origins, families, and properties of the people; they are to ( watch over / protect ) the city's temples, roads, waters, treasury, and taxes; they are to divide the people into three parts; next, they are to ( allow / approve ) the properties, generations, and ranks [ of the people ]; they are to describe the offspring of knights and footsoldiers; they are to forbid being unmarried; they are to guide the behavior of the people; they are not to overlook abuse in the Senate ."
