Note 286 — Chapter I · THE EARLIEST CONSTITUTION OF ROME (continued 2)

Gellius vi. (vii.) 13 “‘Classici’ dicebantur non omnes, qui in quinque classibus erant, sed primae tantum classis homines, qui centum et viginti quinque milia aeris ampliusve censi erant. ‘Infra classem’ autem appellabantur secundae classis ceterarumque omnium classium, qui minore summa aeris, quod supra dixi, censebantur”; Festus p. 113 “infra classem significantur qui minore summa quam centum et viginti milium aeris censi sunt.”

Belot (Hist. d. Chev. Rom. i. 204, 205) thinks that the 125,000 asses mentioned here was the figure of the lowest census—the fifth class—at the time of the lex Voconia (169 B.C.), mentioned in this connexion by Festus. The designation in asses was still kept, but the as must now be multiplied by 10 (12,500 × 10 = 125,000 asses). Belot starts from his hypothesis that the as of the census is the old libral as. See the tables on the next page. Mommsen (Staatsr. iii. p. 249 n. 4), on the other hand, supposes that the law referred to the census of the first class, and that it was through an interpretation meant to limit its operation, when the value of money had altered, expressed in terms of the centum milia aeris of libral asses. That it was so interpreted is shown by the fact that the centum milia aeris of the Voconian law (Gaius ii. 274) became centum milia sestertium (Schol. to Cic. Verr. ii. 1, 41, 104, p. 188 Orell.), i.e. 25,000 denarii (Dio Cass. lvi. 10).