15.
Freedmen had been distributed among the four city tribes except for those who had a son over five years old (these they ordered to be reckoned where they
[2??]
had been enrolled at the census immediately previous), and those who had an estate or estates in the country valued at over thirty thousand sesterces . . .1 the privilege of enrolling was granted.
[3]
Although this arrangement had become established in this way, Claudius said that it was impossible for a censor without a decree of the people to deprive any individual of his ballot, let alone a whole class.
[4]
For if, said Claudius, the censor could move a man from his tribe, which was exactly what ordering him to change his tribe meant, he could remove him from all thirty-five tribes, that is, deprive him of citizenship and status as a free man-not determine where he should be enrolled but exclude him from enrolment.2
[5]
This was argued between the two censors; finally they resorted to the following solution: they drew lots publicly in the Hall of [p. 295]Liberty for one of the four city tribes, to which they3 would consign all those who had been slaves.
[6]
The lot of the Esquiline tribe was cast; Tiberius Gracchus announced that they had decided to enrol all freedmen in this tribe.
[7]
This matter was regarded by the senate as greatly to the credit of the censors. Thanks were voted to Sempronius, for having persisted in a praiseworthy undertaking, and to Claudius, for not interfering.
[8]
More men were removed from the senate than by former censors, and more also ordered to sell their horses.4 All alike were by both censors removed from their tribe and made aerarii; nor was the disgrace of anyone who had been blacklisted by the one relieved by the other.
[9]
When the censors asked that their term of a year and a half be prolonged in order that they might, as was customary, see to repairs to buildings and inspect the public works for which they had contracted, the request was vetoed by the tribune Gnaeus Tremellius, because he had not been chosen for the senate.
[10]
In this same year Gaius Cicereius dedicated a temple to Moneta on the Alban Mount five years after he vowed it.5 In this year Lucius Postumius Albinus was consecrated as flamen of Mars.6
1 The lacuna may have contained mention of the country tribes, in which the freedmen with large holdings were allowed.
2 Claudius appears to be indulging in hyperbole, since the private rights of a free citizen were not in question.
3 B.C. 168
4 Previous instances of severity on the part of these censors are recorded in XLIII. xv. 6; xvi. 1; XLIV. xvi. 8.
5 His vow is recorded in XLII. vii. 1; his triumph, on the Alban Mount, in XLII. xxi. 7. Dio Cassius XXXIX. 20, records as a portent that “a small temple of Juno, on a certain table, facing the east, was turned to the north.” Perhaps the curious mention of a table (trapeza) is an error due to the association of Juno Moneta with monetary matters, of. the monetary associations of trapeze.
6 The death of the previous flamen is recorded in XLIV. xviii. 7.
Livy. Books XLIII-XLV With An English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1951: published without copyright notice.
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