his field was likewise put out of the tribe, that is to say, he was declared to be _de facto_ no husbandman; and so was the _eques_ who kept his horse badly: this is the _notatio censoria_. Such a person was placed among the burghers of the pale (_ærarii_), because he was not worthy of holding his property. The ærarian, on the other hand, who distinguished himself, who acquired landed property, was placed as a mark of honour among the plebeians; the plebeian who distinguished himself, was transferred into the centuries of the plebeian knights. Foreigners, however, they could certainly not make citizens: for this there were fixed rules, or else the popular assembly conferred the right of citizenship by means of an extraordinary act. In a state, the changeable elements of which were widely different,--where the _Plebes_ was not an exclusive order, but was allowed to recruit itself; and where there existed among its ranks an aristocratic order of honour, that of the knights, which was not bound to the census; there must be some authority which assigns to every individual his station: for such an order of honour cannot be exclusive and unchangeable, owing to its very nature as an order of honour. One might say, that the decision about it ought to have been left to the people; yet this was not only a circuitous, but also a preposterous arrangement, as in all probability the censors,--who were chosen from the most distinguished persons, and who held their office under the fullest responsibility, whilst moreover one colleague might even impugn the acts of the other,--would be much fairer than the whole people, had it been called upon to make the selection. The senate also needed a careful supervision to fill up its vacancies, and to secure its respectability. It was indeed originally an assembly of the clans, every one of which had its representative senator; but when the clans began to dwindle away, there were taken from the whole order three hundred,--an hundred from each tribe; so that in consequence of the extinction of the clans, one clan might often number several votes, and another become altogether weak or degenerate. Afterwards the _lex Ovinia Tribunicia_[110] was passed, in which it is enacted that from the whole order, without regard to the _gentes_, the most worthy should be chosen. If it dates from the first times of the censorship, it proves that in those days the senate still consisted only of patricians, and that from all the three tribes the most worthy were taken. The statement that by Brutus, or Valerius Poplicola, plebeians had, under the name of _conscripti_, been already introduced into the senate, is either a fable, or it must be considered as quite a temporary arrangement. About the time of the migration of the commonalty, and likewise at the actual period itself, not a single plebeian could have been in the senate: towards the middle of the fourth century we can trace it for the first time.