Note 448 — Chapter II · THE GROWTH OF THE REPUBLICAN CONSTITUTION
Reading edition
Liv. iv. 24. Mommsen indeed thinks (Staatsr. ii. p. 349) that this lex Aemilia first made the censorship an independent magistracy with a fixed tenure. It was probably an independent magistracy before, but with no fixed tenure. Hence the belief that the censors originally held office for five years, the period of the lustrum (Liv. l.c., cf. ix. 34).