A further quaestorian department is mentioned by Cicero—the _provincia aquaria_, which was probably concerned with the water supply of the capital. It is uncertain whether this function was attached to one of the Italian quaestorships.[1013]
We have already described the institution of the censorship in 443 B.C.,[1014] and have seen that patrician rank was originally a necessary qualification for the post. The first mention of a plebeian censor is in 351 B.C.[1015] One of the Publilian laws of 339 B.C. is said to have extended to the censorship the provision of the Licinian law about the consulship, and to have enacted that one censor must be a Plebeian;[1016] but it is not until the year 131 B.C. that we find two plebeian censors.[1017]
The election to this office, like that to the other higher magistracies, took place in the _comitia centuriata_[1018] under presidency of the consul. The election was then ratified, not, as in the case of other magistrates, by a _lex curiata_, but by a _lex centuriata_,[1019] a form of statutory approval which marks the censors as peculiarly the officials concerned with the organisation of the _exercitus_.
In rank the censor occupies an anomalous position. Although lacking the _imperium_ and the right of summoning people and Senate, he is reckoned amongst the _majores magistratus_, he has the “highest _auspicia_,”[1020] he sits in the curule chair, wears the purple-striped toga, and (an honour accorded to no other magistrate) is buried in the full purple of the king.[1021] Politically the censorship was the apex of a career. Often held in its earlier period by ex-consuls, it became practically confined to the consular, and its enormous powers, its lofty ethical significance, and its comparative infrequency made it the goal of those who had already attained the chief titular dignity of the state.
Four attributes of the office are very important in determining its character. The first gave it the necessary authority, the others created a healthful limitation of its powers.
(1) The censorship was an irresponsible office.[1022] Its holders could not be called to account for any act done in connexion with the _census_, any act that was an outcome of the _censoria potestas_ ratified by the _lex centuriata_; and although the _lectio senatus_ was a later addition to their functions, this power seems to have been included in the indemnity. This principle of immunity was stated in a decree of the Senate of the year 204 B.C.,[1023] and, although often challenged by the tribunes, was maintained until the close of the Republic. One of the effects of the Clodian _plebiscitum_ of 58 B.C., which limited the discretionary power of the censors in the _regimen morum_,[1024] would have been to make them judicially responsible for a breach of its provisions; but this law was soon repealed. The censors were also free from the usual limitation created by the tribunician intercession; it was clearly invalid against the particular _potestas_ exercised at the _census_,[1025] although the _obnuntiatio_ could be employed against the summons of the people to the _census_ and the _lustrum_, as against any other _contio_.[1026]