One MP pays a tax fine, one borrows money from a relation and one is accused of bullying staff. More ‘corruption and sleaze’? Romans might have seen it as a matter of basic values.
In 443 bc, Rome established the prestigious office of censor, to be held by two men, usually ex-consuls. As well as maintaining an official list of Roman citizens and their property (the census), they were also responsible for the oversight of public morals (regimen morum).
Anyone who fell below what the censors regarded as the high standards of a Roman citizen was removed from his tribe, was not allowed to vote and had a mark made against his name on the citizen register.
The most famous censor was Marcus Porcius (‘Carthage must be destroyed’), also known as Cato the Elder (234-149 bc), ‘a man to whom severity was ascribed for the whole of his life’.
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