ACCENSI
ACCENSI properly “supernumeraries,” from
accenseo (the other derivations given by Varro,
Ling. Lat. 6.89, Mull., are impossible and absurd). The
word is used in four senses.
1. Livy (
1.43,
7) adds
to the fifth class of citizens in the Servian classification a century of
accensi (
in his accensi,
cornicines, tubicinesque, in tres centurias distributi); and
Cicero, in a fragmentary passage (
de Rep. 2.22, 40), writes
quin etiam accensis velatis, liticinibus,
cornicinibus, proletariis .... Lange corrects Livy, reading
in his accensis, and takes
accensi to be the general name for the fifth class,
accepting also the earlier correction
in II.
centurias (approved by Sir G. C. Lewis). This has the advantage of
bringing the total number of centuries (193 instead of 194) into harmony
with the statements of Dionysius and Cicero, and giving an odd number
instead of an even one. Whether Livy was mistaken, or his text is corrupt,
may be doubtful; but the view that
accensi
denotes the whole of the fifth class can hardly be disputed. The alternative
hypothesis of Niebuhr, that the
accensi were
those citizens who possessed between 12,500 and 7000 asses, while those
possessing between 7000 and 1500 were called
velati, has but slight support, and is generally abandoned.
2. As a military term,
accensi denotes the
reserve-soldiers, who, at the time when each soldier had to find his own
arms, could provide themselves with nothing better than sticks and stones.
Besides serving as light infantry, they would add force to the impact of the
phalanx by pressing on from behind. From their lack of defensive armour they
were known as
velati; but when any heavy-armed
soldiers were killed or wounded, the
accensi
took their places, and used their armour and weapons (Varro,
L.
L. 7.56; Paul. D. s. v.
ad scripticii). They
were also called
ferentarii, probably as Cato
says (ap. Paul. D.
l.c.)
quod
tela ac potiones militibus pugnantibus ministrabant; not as
Varro suggests,
qui ea modi habebant anna quae ferrentur,
ut jaculum. (Corssen,
Krit. Beitr. p. 178,
suggests a wholly different derivation.) After B.C. 352, when soldiers
received pay from the state, the
accensi
provided themselves with better weapons; but we find even on the Column of
Trajan a soldier armed with stones alone. At this later stage the term
rorarii was in use for the light-armed
slingers, while the
accensi denoted the
proletarii who were
ad
legionum censum adscripti. The term
accensi was also used to denote the attendants on the cavalry,
who held their spare horses (Paul. D. s. v.
pares
equi; Varr.
L. L. 5.82), and the orderlies of the
centurions (Fest. s. v.
optio: optio qui nunc dicitur,
antea appellabatur accensus; is adjutor dabatur centurioni a tribuno
militum).
3. The magistrates who were attended by lictors had also supernumerary
attendants (
accensi), who did not bear the
fasces, but were ready to replace a lictor if occasion should arise. So long
as the custom lasted that the two colleagues were preceded by the fasces on
alternate days, an
accensus attended on the one
penes quem fasces non erant. There is no
sufficient reason to assume with some that these attendants were always
chosen from the class of
accensi; in later
times they were generally the freedmen of the magistrates whom they served.
(
Cic. ad Q. fr. 1.1,
4, 12;
in Verr. 3.67, 157;
ad Att. 4.6, 12,
and often in inscriptions.) Among the duties of an
accensus was to summon the people to the
comitia (Varr.
L. L. 6.88):
[p. 1.6]the
accensus of the consul, and
afterwards of the praetor, also proclaimed the third, the sixth, and the
ninth hour of the day in the
comitium.
4. On inscriptions of the time of the Empire mention is made of
accensi velati, who formed a college of 100 members,
charged with the superintendence of the public roads. They consisted largely
of knights and high officials, and were exempt
a tutelis
et curis (
Frag. Jur. Rom. Vat. § 189:
cf. Mommsen in
Annali dell' Instit. Arch. 1849, p. 209). It
is probable that they derived their name and functions from the
centuria accensorum velatorum, mentioned above, who
may have had charge of the communications of the army in the field
(Marquardt,
Staatsr. 2.319).
[
A.S.W]
