The review of the knights (_equitum census_,[1063] _recognitio equitum_[1064]) took place, not like that of the rest of the citizens in the Campus Martius, but in the Forum. The whole corps filed past the censor man by man, each knight leading his horse by the bridle, as the herald called his name.[1065] The first question considered by the censors was that of discharge. While the knights were still the cavalry of Rome, the service was a burden, and a burden that from the close of the second century of the Republic was made incompatible with a seat in the Senate.[1066] In the Gracchan period, as we have seen, ten years’ service had to be proved before the knight could claim his dismissal.[1067] The discharge was usually granted, if the conditions had been fulfilled, but the censors, as a penal measure, claimed the right of not allowing past service to count, and even of imposing additional service at the knight’s own expense.[1068] Ignominious discharge, before the completed term of service, was a consequence of military negligence, as shown, for instance, by the shabby condition of the public horse (_impolitia_),[1069] or of any moral blemish, which in other ranks of life would have entailed dismissal from the Senate or the tribes. The form of dismissal was “sell your horse” (_vende equum_), of retention “lead it on” (_traduc equum_).[1070] The censors’ final duty was to fill up the vacant gaps in the centuries. This was done by the enrolment, at their own discretion, of qualified members from the infantry (_pedites_). This procedure was but one example of that wider censure which was directed against the citizen body at the time of its registration in the Campus Martius. This scrutiny was preceded by an edict in which the censors declared some of their moral canons—canons, we may believe, that were transmitted from college to college and seldom departed from—while they animadverted on new evils which they believed to be undermining the life of the state.[1071] The acts which called forth their censure may be conveniently considered under four heads.