The ''aerarii'' (from Lat. '' aes'', "bronze" or "money" in its subsidiary sense of "

poll tax A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources. ''Poll'' is an archaic term for "head" or "top of the head". The sen ...

") were a class of Roman citizens not included in the thirty tribes of

Servius Tullius Servius Tullius was the legendary sixth king of Rome, and the second of its Etruscan dynasty. He reigned from 578 to 535 BC. Roman and Greek sources describe his servile origins and later marriage to a daughter of Lucius Tarquinius Pri ...

, and subject to a poll-tax arbitrarily fixed by the censor. They were: *The inhabitants of conquered towns which had been deprived of local self-government, who possessed the '' jus conubii'' (right of legal marriage) and '' jus commercii'' (right to engage in lawful business), but no political rights. Caere is said to have been the first example of this (353 BC). Hence the expression "in tabulas Caeritum referre" came to mean " to degrade to the status of an ''aerarius''." *Full citizens subjected to civil degradation ''(

infamia In ancient Rome, (''in-'', "not", and ''fama'', "reputation") was a loss of legal or social standing. As a technical term in Roman law, was juridical exclusion from certain protections of Roman citizenship, imposed as a legal penalty by a ce ...

)'' as the result of following certain professions (primarily the

performing arts The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which involve the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. P ...

), of dishonourable acts in private life (for instance '' stuprum'') or of conviction for certain crimes. *Persons "branded" (stigmatized by receiving a ''nota'', essentially a " black mark") by the censor. Those who were thus excluded from the tribes and centuries had no vote were incapable of filling Roman magistracies, and could not serve in the army. According to

Theodore Mommsen Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (; ; 30 November 1817 – 1 November 1903) was a Germans, German classics, classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician and archaeologist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest classicis ...

, the ''aerarii'' were originally the non-''assidui'' (non-holders of land), excluded from the tribes, the ''comitia'' and the army. By a reform of the censor

Appius Claudius Caecus Appius Claudius Caecus ( 312–279 BC) was a statesman and writer from the Roman Republic. He is best known for two major building projects: the Appian Way (Latin: Via Appia), the first major Roman road, and the first Roman aqueduct, aqueduc ...

in 312 BC these non-''assidui'' were admitted into the tribes, and the ''aerarii'' as such disappeared. But in 304, Fabius Rullianus limited them to the four city tribes, and from that time the term meant a man degraded from a higher (rural) to a lower (urban) tribe, but not deprived of the right of voting or of serving in the army. The expressions ''tribu movere'' and ''aerarium facere,'' regarded by Mommsen as identical in meaning ("to degrade from a higher tribe to a lower"), are explained by Greenidge the first as relegation from a higher to a lower tribe or total exclusion from the tribes, the second as exclusion from the centuries. Other views of the original ''aerarii'' are that they were: artisans and freedmen (Niebuhr); inhabitants of towns united with

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

by a '' hospitium publicum'', who had become domiciled on Roman territory (Lange); only a class of degraded citizens, including neither the ''cives sine suffragio'' nor the artisans (according to Johan Nicolai Madvig); identical with the ''

capite censi ''Capite censi'' were the lowest class of citizens in ancient Rome, people not of the nobility or middle classes. The term in Latin means "those counted by head" in the ancient Roman census. Also known as "the head count", the owned little or no ...

'' of the Servian constitution (Belot, Greenidge).

References

{{EB1911 article with no significant updates Social classes in ancient Rome Roman Republic