AERĀRĬI, a class of Roman citizens, who were not included in the thirty tribes instituted by Servius Tullius. Although citizens, they did not possess the suffragium, or right of voting in the comitia. They were _cives sine suffragio_. They also paid the tribute in a different manner from the other citizens. The Aerarians were chiefly artisans and freedmen. The Caerites, or inhabitants of the Etruscan town of Caere, who obtained the franchise in early times, but without the suffragium, were probably the first body of aerarians. Any Roman citizen guilty of a crime punishable by the censors, might be degraded to the rank of an aerarian; so that his civic rights were suspended, at least for the time that he was an aerarian. All citizens so degraded were classed among the Caerites; whence we find the expressions _aerarium facere_ and _in tabulas Caeritum referre_ used as synonymous. Persons who were made _infames_ likewise became aerarians, for they lost the jus honorum and the suffragium. The aerarians had to pay a tributum pro capite which was considerably higher than that paid by the other citizens. They were not allowed to serve in the legions. AERĀRĬI TRĬBŪNI. [AES EQUESTRE.] AERĀRĬUM (τὸ δημόσιον), the public treasury at Rome, and hence the public money itself. After the banishment of the kings the temple of Saturn was employed as the place for keeping the public money, and it continued to be so used till the later times of the empire. Besides the public money and the accounts connected with it, various other things were preserved in the treasury; of these the most important were:--1. The standards of the legions. 2. The various laws passed from time to time, engraven on brazen tables. 3. The decrees of the senate, which were entered there in books kept for the purpose, though the original documents were preserved in the temple of Ceres under the custody of the aediles. 4. Various other public documents, the reports and despatches of all generals and governors of provinces, the names of all foreign ambassadors that came to Rome, &c. Under the republic the aerarium was divided into two parts: the _common_ treasury, in which were deposited the regular taxes, and from which were taken the sums of money needed for the ordinary expenditure of the state; and the _sacred_ treasury (_aerarium sanctum_ or _sanctius_), which was never touched except in cases of extreme peril. Both of these treasuries were in the temple of Saturn, but in distinct parts of the temple. The produce of a tax of five per cent. (_vicesima_) upon the value of every manumitted slave, called _aurum vicesimarium_, was paid into the sacred treasury, as well as a portion of the immense wealth obtained by the Romans in their conquests in the East. Under Augustus the provinces and the administration of the government were divided between the senate, as the representative of the old Roman people, and the Caesar: all the property of the former continued to be called _aerarium_, and