A censor was the official responsible for conducting the Roman census (the official count of people and property). The position, created in about 443 B.C., also included such responsibilities as awarding state contracts for building roads and public buildings, collecting taxes, and supervising public morality. Censors had enormous power, which extended even to the Roman Senate. They could remove any member of the Senate for violating Roman laws or for exhibiting questionable moral conduct.
Rome had two censors who were elected, usually every five years, for an 18-month term. At first, all censors came from the patrician* class. Then, a law passed in 339 B.C. required that at least one censor be from the plebeian* class. The office evolved into one of the most highly respected positions in Rome, and it often went to former consuls*. The position of censor began to decline in importance under the dictatorship of Sulla around 80 B.C., and it lost its remaining significance in the first century A.D. when the emperor Domitian declared himself censor for life.
The word censorship derived from the office of censor. Our modern idea of censorship—banning or prohibiting objectionable speech, writing, or art—comes from the censor’s role as a guardian of public morality and his ability to punish those who failed to conform to certain moral standards. There was little official censorship, in the modern sense, in the period of the Roman Republic*. Romans at that time considered freedom of expression to be an important privilege of Roman citizenship. This changed, however, in the early years of the Roman Empire, when freedom of expression was challenged and then curbed. During that time, officials frequently banned or burned objectionable books, and they punished, exiled, or killed individuals who wrote anything critical of the emperors or the government. Such censorship decreased in the A.D. 100s. (See also Census, Roman; Law, Roman; Ostracism; Patricians, Roman; Plebeians, Roman; Senate, Roman; Tacitus.)
* patrician member of the upper class who traced his ancestry to a senatorial family in the earliest days of the Roman Republic
* plebeian member of the general body of Roman citizens, as distinct from the upper class
* consul one of two chief governmental officials of Rome, chosen annually and serving for a year
* Roman Republic Rome during the period from 509 B.C. to 31 B.C., when popular assemblies annually elected their governmental officials