Note 296 — Chapter I · THE EARLIEST CONSTITUTION OF ROME (continued 2)

Capite censi, if we trust Cicero (de Rep. ii. 22, 40, see p. 72), came to mean those below 1500 asses (the subsequent limit to the incidence of taxation). The limit of census for military service was also reduced to 4000 asses (Polyb. vi. 19), and finally to 375 (Gell. xvi. 10, 10), and those below this census continued to be called capite censi (Gell. l.c.; Sall. Jug. 86). Aerarius, on the other hand, seems to have preserved its old meaning of those excluded from the centuries—Ps. Asc. in Divin. p. 103 “(Censores) prorsus cives sic notabant ... ut, qui plebeius (esset) ... aerarius fieret, ac per hoc non esset in albo centuriae suae, sed ad hoc [non] esset civis, tantummodo ut pro capite suo tributi nomine aera praeberet.”