''Capite censi'' were the lowest class of citizens in
ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...
, people not of the
nobility
Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally appointed by and ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. T ...
or
middle class
The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. C ...
es. The term in
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
means "those counted by head" in the ancient Roman
census
A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...
. Also known as "the head count", the owned little or no property, so they were counted by the head rather than by their property.
Initially ''capite censi'' was synonymous with ''
proletarii'', meaning those citizens whose property was too small to be rated for the census. Later, though, the ''proletarii'' were distinguished from the ''capite censi'' as having "appreciable property" to the value of 11,000
ass
Ass most commonly refers to:
* Buttocks (in informal American English)
* Donkey or ass, ''Equus africanus asinus''
**any other member of the subgenus ''Asinus''
Ass or ASS may also refer to:
Art and entertainment
* Ass (album), ''Ass'' (albu ...
es or less. In contrast, the ''capite censi'' are assumed to have not owned any property of significance.
See also
*
*
*
Notes
Social classes in ancient Rome
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