Regimen Morum

In his account of the year 443 B.C., Livy, reporting the first appointment of censors, introduced the censorship as an institution which sprang from a small beginning but grew to such an extent that the guidance of Roman mores and discipline was in its hands (‘morum disciplinaeque Romanae penes eam regimen’), the distinction between honourable and dishonourable amongst the senators and the centuries of the equites was under the judgement of that magistracy … This passage, with its mention of a regimen morum , is one of many which either attest explicitly or illustrate by anecdote that the censors concerned themselves with mores . In the eyes of several authors of antiquity it was this aspect which most strongly characterized the censorship, and there can be no doubt that it was a prominent and central feature.