CENSOR (τιμητής), the name of two magistrates of high rank in the Roman republic. Their office was called _Censura_ (τιμητεία or τιμητία). The _Census_, which was a register of Roman citizens and of their property, was first established by Servius Tullius, the fifth king of Rome. After the expulsion of the kings it was taken by the consuls; and special magistrates were not appointed for the purpose of taking it till the year B.C. 443. The reason of this alteration was owing to the appointment in the preceding year of tribuni militum with consular power in place of the consuls; and as these tribunes might be plebeians, the patricians deprived the consuls, and consequently their representatives, the tribunes, of the right of taking the census, and entrusted it to two magistrates, called _Censores_, who were to be chosen exclusively from the patricians. The magistracy continued to be a patrician one till B.C. 351, when C. Marcius Rutilus was the first plebeian censor. Twelve years afterwards, B.C. 339, it was provided by one of the Publilian laws, that one of the censors must necessarily be a plebeian, but it was not till B.C. 280 that a plebeian censor performed the solemn purification of the people (_lustrum condidit_). In B.C. 131 the two censors were for the first time plebeians.--The censors were elected in the comitia centuriata held under the presidency of a consul. As a general principle, the only persons eligible to the office were those who had previously been consuls; but a few exceptions occur. At first there was no law to prevent a person being censor a second time; but the only person, who was twice elected to the office, was C. Marcius Rutilus in B.C. 265; and he brought forward a law in this year, enacting that no one should be chosen censor a second time, and received in consequence the surname of Censorinus.--The censorship is distinguished from all other Roman magistracies by the length of time during which it was held. The censors were originally chosen for a whole lustrum, that is, a period of five years; but their office was limited to eighteen months, as early as ten years after its institution (B.C. 433), by a law of the dictator Mam. Aemilius Mamercinus. The censors also held a very peculiar position with respect to rank and dignity. No imperium was bestowed upon them, and accordingly they had no lictors. The _jus censurae_ was granted to them by a _lex centuriata_, and not by the curiae, and in that respect they were inferior in power to the consuls and praetors. But notwithstanding this, the censorship was regarded as the highest dignity in the state, with the exception of the dictatorship; it was a _sanctus magistratus_, to which the deepest reverence was due. They possessed of course the sella curulis. The funeral of a censor was always conducted with great pomp and splendour, and hence a _funus censorium_ was voted even to the emperors.--The censorship continued in existence for 421 years, namely, from B.C. 443 to