The censors between public and private: an antiquarian perspective

Book section : Chapter

In the course of the late Republic, an increasing emphasis was placed on the role of the censors in expelling its members considered unworthy. By putting forward a distinctive etymology of the noun censores, Varro takes part in an institutional debate concerning the constitutive components of the civic community and the mechanisms for regulating its membership. In response to Clodius’ lex de notione censoria and in dialogue with Cicero, Varro advances a proposal that was both pragmatically effective and ideologically programmatic. He argues that the censors should act as arbitri, not judges, of the community’s mores, as boni uiri, exercising their complete liberty by virtue of bona fides. At the foundation of the populus Romanus, composed of the sum of the singuli ciues called into assembly by the censors, there should, Varro implicitly claims, be a system regulated by virtue and not by law, based on shared values and claims

Authors: Arena, V

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Host title: The Roman Censorship: Perceptions and Realities
• Pages: 230-250
• Chapter number: 9
• Place of publication: Berlin
• Publication date: 2026-09-21
• Edition: 1
• DOI: 10.1515/9783111091624-010
• EISBN: 9783111091624
• ISBN: 9783111085326
• Language: English
• Subtype: Chapter