Aerarii
The aerarii were a class of Roman citizens not included in the thirty tribes of Servius Tullius, 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 and jus commercii, but no political rights. Caere is said to have been the first example of this. Hence the expression "in tabulas Caeritum referre" came to mean " to degrade to the status of an aerarius."
- Full citizens subjected to civil degradation as the result of following certain professions, of dishonourable acts in private life or of conviction for certain crimes.
- Persons "branded" by the censor.
The expressions tribu movere and aerarium facere, regarded by Mommsen as identical in meaning, 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 ; inhabitants of towns united with Rome by a hospitium publicum, who had become domiciled on Roman territory ; only a class of degraded citizens, including neither the cives sine suffragio nor the artisans ; identical with the capite censi of the Servian constitution.