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. Head taxes were important sources of revenue for many governments fr ...

") were a class of

Roman citizens Citizenship in ancient Rome (Latin: ''civitas'') was a privileged political and legal status afforded to free individuals with respect to laws, property, and governance. Citizenship in Ancient Rome was complex and based upon many different laws, t ...

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 Priscus, Rome ...

, 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 : Caere (also Caisra and Cisra) is the Latin name given by the Romans to one of the larger cities of southern Etruria, the modern Cerveteri, approximately 50–60 kilometres north-northwest of Rome. To the Etruscans it was known as Cisra, to ...

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 Roman culture, ''infamia'' (''in-'', "not," and ''fama'', "reputation") was a loss of legal or social standing. As a technical term of Roman law, ''infamia'' was an official exclusion from the legal protections enjoyed by a Roman citiz ...

)'' 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 are the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Perform ...

), of dishonourable acts in private life (for instance ''

stuprum Sexual attitudes and behaviors in ancient Rome are indicated by art, literature, and inscriptions, and to a lesser extent by archaeological remains such as erotic artifacts and architecture. It has sometimes been assumed that "unlimited sexual ...

'') 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 German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician and archaeologist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest classicists of the 19th century ...

, 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. The first Roman public figure whose life can be traced with some historical certainty, Caecus was responsible for the building of Rome's first road (t ...

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 , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

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 Johan Nicolai Madvig (; 7 August 1804 – 12 December 1886), was a Danish philologist and Kultus Minister. Life He was born on the Danish island of Bornholm, south of Sweden. He was educated at the classical school of Frederiksborg and the Un ...

); identical with the ''

capite censi ''Capite censi'' were literally, in Latin, "those counted by head" in the ancient Roman census. Also known as "the head count", the term was used to refer to the lowest class of citizens, people not of the nobility or middle classes, owning little ...

'' of the

Servian constitution The Servian constitution was one of the earliest forms of military and political organization used during The Roman Republic. Most of the reforms extended voting rights to certain groups, in particular to Rome's citizen-commoners (collectively, t ...

(Belot, Greenidge).

References

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