List of censors of the Roman Republic

This list of Roman censors includes all holders through to its subsumption under that of Roman emperor in 22BC.

Censors were elected by the Centuriate Assembly and served as a duo. Censors were elected to take an account of all citizens and their property value before performing a rite of religious purification. Roman taxes were levied based on the censors' account, and the censors could punitively tax citizens who failed to present at the census or falsely accounted for their property.

Whilst having no right to uphold law or command in war, the office of censor was the highest honour. Unlike the office of consul, which deteriorated over the Roman Republic period, most censors were men of exceptional standing and character.^[1] Censors were known also as castigatores (English: chastisers) for their duty as the regulators of public morality. For instance, in 92 BC censors Domitius Ahenobarbus and Crassus condemned the teaching of rhetoric in Latin (as opposed to the customary Greek):

We have been informed that there are persons who have established a novel sort of instruction and that the youth gather at their school; that these people have styled themselves "Latin rhetoricians"; and that young persons idle away whole days there. […] These new practices, which do not accord with ordinary custom and the way of our ancestors, are vexatious and wayward-seeming. Therefore we make our judgment plain both to those who preside over these schools and those who have become accustomed to attending them: we do not approve.^[2]

Initially, censors were chosen exclusively from among Roman citizens of patrician birth. In 332 BC, Quintus Publilius Philo was elected the first Plebeian censor^{[clarification needed]} after legislation – that he introduced while dictator – providing one censor of each two must be a plebeian.