The censors and their duties in the comedies of Plautus

• Localización: Revista General de Derecho Romano, ISSN-e 1697-3046, Nº. 23, 2014
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • None of the surviving Plautus� plays refer expressly to the censors. Still the author appears to have made excellent use of the comic potential offered by the censors� office without mentioning the magistracy directly. He set up some of his characters as censors, but more often he referred to legal institutions associated with the censors� powers. Plautus� characters mention the census and citizens making their property declarations to the censors� assistants; they also mention the review of the equestrian centuries. Another group of references concerns the censors� administrative powers, the drawing up of contracts for the leasehold of public revenues and expenditure. Plautus mentions the sarta tecta, a contract for the repair and maintenance of a public building; as well as a range of taxes and duties leased out by the state to publicans. There are several mentions of portorium, customs duty; and also of pascua, the toll for grazing livestock on public land, and aratio, the rent for farming a plot of public land. Plautus was very adroit in applying such terms for comic purposes � to make fun of an over-inquisitive wife, a greedy procuress or prostitute. All of these applications endow his comedies with a characteristic Roman flavour.