44. In the review of the knights, Lucius Scipio Asiaticus was degraded. In fixing the rates of taxation, also, the censor’s conduct was harsh and severe to all ranks of men. People were ordered to give account upon oath, of women’s dress, and ornaments, and carriages exceeding in value fifteen thousand asses;[53] and it was further ordered, that slaves, younger than twenty years, which, since the last survey, had been sold for ten thousand asses[54] or more, should be estimated at ten times their value; and that, on all these articles, a tax should be laid of three denariuses[55] for each thousand asses.[56] The censors took away water which belonged to the public running or carried into any private building or field; and they demolished within thirty days all buildings or sheds, in possession of private persons, that projected into public ground. They then engaged contractors for executing national works, with the money decreed for that purpose,—for paving cisterns with stone, for cleansing the sewers where it was requisite, and forming new ones on the Aventine, and in other quarters where hitherto there had been none. Then, dividing their tasks, Flaccus built a mole at Nepthunia, on the coast, and made a road through the Formian mountains. Cato purchased for the use of the people two halls, the Mænian and Titian, in the Lautumiæ, and four shops, and built there a court of justice, which was called the Porcian. They farmed out the several branches of the revenue at the highest prices, and bargained with the contractors for the performance of the public services on the lowest terms. When the senate, overcome by the prayers and lamentations of the publicans, ordered those bargains to be revoked, and new agreements to be made; the censors, by an edict, excluded from competition the persons who had eluded the former contracts, and farmed out all the same branches at prices very little reduced. This was a remarkable censorship, and the origin of many deadly feuds: it rendered Marcus Porcius, to whom all the harshness was attributed, uneasy during the remainder of his life. This year, two colonies were established, Potentia in Picenum, and Pisaurum in the Gallic territory. Six acres were given to each settler. The same commissioners had the ordering of both colonies, and the division of the lands, Quintus Fabius Labeo, Marcus Fulvius Flaccus, and Quintus Fulvius Nobilior. The consuls of that year performed nothing memorable at home or abroad.