Lucrezia, Giacomo and Bernardo confessed the crime; and Beatrice, who at first denied everything, even under torture, also ended by confessing. Great efforts were made to obtain mercy for the accused, but the crime was considered too heinous, and the pope (Clement VIII.) refused to grant a pardon; on the 11th of September 1599, Beatrice and Lucrezia were beheaded, and Giacomo, after having been tortured with red-hot pincers, was killed with a mace, drawn and quartered. Bernardo’s penalty, on account of his youth, was commuted to perpetual imprisonment, and after a year’s confinement he was pardoned. The property of the family was confiscated.
The romantic character of the history of this family has been the subject of poems, dramas and novels. Shelley’s tragedy is well known as a magnificent piece of writing, although the author adopts a purely fictitious version of the story. Nor is F. D. Guerrazzi’s novel, Beatrice Cenci (Milan, 1872), more trustworthy. The first attempt to deal with the subject on documentary evidence is A. Bertolotti’s Francesco Cenci e la sua famiglia (2nd ed., Florence, 1879), containing a number of interesting documents which place the events in their true light; cf. Labruzzi’s article in the Nuova Antologia, 1879, vol. xiv., and another in the Edinburgh Review, January 1879.
CENOBITES (from Gr. κοινός, common, and βίος, life), monks who lived together in a convent or community under a rule and a superior,—in contrast to hermits or anchorets who live in isolation. The Basilians (q.v.) in the East and the Benedictines (q.v.) in the West are the chief cenobitical orders (see Monasticism).
CENOMANI, a branch of the Aulerci in Gallia Celtica, whose territory corresponded generally to Maine in the modern department of Sarthe. Their chief town was Vindinum or Suindinum (corrupted into Subdinnum), afterwards Civitas Cenomanorum (whence Le Mans), the original name of the town, as usual in the case of Gallic cities, being replaced by that of the people. According to Caesar (Bell. Gall. vii. 75. 3), they assisted Vercingetorix in the great rising (52 B.C.) with a force of 5000 men. Under Augustus they formed a civitas stipendiaria of Gallia Lugdunensis, and in the 4th century part of Gallia Lugdunensis iii. About 400 B.C., under the leadership of Elitovius (Livy v. 35), a large number of the Cenomani crossed into Italy, drove the Etruscans southwards, and occupied their territory. The statement of Cato (in Pliny, Nat. Hist. iii. 130), that some of them settled near Massilia in the territory of the Volcae, may indicate the route taken by them. The limits of their territory are not clearly defined, but were probably the Athesis (Adige or Etsch) on the east, the Ollius (Oglio, or perhaps the Addua) on the west, and the Padus on the south. Livy gives their chief towns as Brixia (Brescia) and Verona; Pliny, Brixia and Cremona. The Cenomani nearly always appear in history as loyal friends and allies of the Romans, whom they assisted in the Gallic war (225 B.C.), when the Boii and Insubres took up arms against Rome, and during the war against Hannibal. They certainly joined in the revolt of the Gauls under Hamilcar (200), but after they had been defeated by the consul Gaius Cornelius (197) they finally submitted. In 49, with the rest of Gallia Transpadana, they acquired the rights of citizenship.
The orthography and the quantity of the penultimate vowel of Cenomani have given rise to discussion. According to Arbois de Jubainville, the Cenomăni of Italy are not identical with the Cenomāni (or Cenomanni) of Gaul. In the case of the latter, the survival of the syllable “man” in Le Mans is due to the stress laid on the vowel; had the vowel been short and unaccented, it would have disappeared. In Italy, Cenomani is the name of a people; in Gaul, merely a surname of the Aulerci.
See A. Voisin, Les Cénomans anciens et modernes (Le Mans, 1862); A. Desjardins, Géographic historique de la Gaule romaine, ii. (1876–1893); Arbois de Jubainville, Les Premiers Habitants de l’Europe (1889–1894); article and authorities in La Grande Encyclopédie; C. Hülsen in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie, iii. pt. 2 (1899); full ancient authorities in A. Holder, Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz, i. (1896).
CENOTAPH (Gr. κενός, empty, τάφος, tomb), a monument or tablet to the memory of a person whose body is buried elsewhere. The custom arose from the erection of monuments to those whose bodies could not be recovered, as in the case of drowning.
CENSOR (from Lat. censere, assess, estimate; in Gr. τιμητής). I. In ancient Rome, the title of the two Roman officials who presided over the census, the registration of individual citizens for the purpose of determining the duties which they owed to the community. In the etymology of the word lurks the idea of the arbitrary assignment of burdens or duties. Varro defines census as arbitrium, and derives the name censores from the position of these magistrates as arbitri populi (Varro, de Ling. Lat. v. 81; ap. Non. p. 519). This original idea of “discretionary power” was never entirely lost; although ultimately it came to be more intimately associated with the appreciation of morals than with the assignment of burdens. From the point of view of its moral significance the censorship was the Roman manifestation of that state control of conduct which was a not unusual feature of ancient societies. It is true that Rome possessed sumptuary laws, and laws dealing with moral offences, which it was the duty of other magistrates to enforce; but the organization for the control of conduct was mainly exhibited in the censorship, and, as thus exhibited, was at once simple and comprehensive.
The censorship was believed to have been instituted in 443 B.C. to relieve the consuls of the duties of registration. Since the periods of registration were quinquennial, it was not a continuous office; but its tenure does not seem to have been fixed until 434 B.C., when a lex Aemilia provided that the censors should hold office for eighteen months. This magistracy was at first confined to patricians; a plebeian censor is first mentioned in 351 B.C. A lex Publilia of 339 B.C. is said to have enacted that one censor must be a plebeian. Two plebeian censors were for the first time elected in 131 B.C. The election always took place in the Comitia Centuriata (see Comitia). The censorship, although lacking the powers implied in the imperium and the right of summoning the senate and the people, was not only one of the higher magistracies, but was regarded as the crown of a political career. It was an irresponsible office; and the only limitations on its powers were created by the restriction of tenure to a year and a half, the fact that re-election was forbidden, and the restraint imposed on each censor by the fact that no act of his was valid without the assent of his colleague.
The original functions of the censors were (1) the registration of citizens in the state-divisions, such as tribes and centuries; (2) the taxation of such citizens based on an estimate of their property; (3) the right of exclusion from public functions on moral grounds, known as the regimen morum; (4) the solemn act of purification (lustrum) which closed the census. Two other functions were subsequently added:—(5) the selection of the senate (lectio senatus, see Senate), and (6) certain financial duties such as the leasing of the contracts for tax-collecting and for the repair of public buildings. The first four of these functions were those of the census, which was a detailed examination of the citizen body as represented by heads of families (patres familiarum) in the Campus Martius. The equites were a select portion of this citizen body; but the review of these knights took place, not in the Campus, but in the Forum (see Equites). It was in connexion with this review of the ordinary citizens and the knights, as well as with the choice of senators, that the censors published their edicts stating the moral rules which they intended to enforce. The offences which they punished were sometimes concerned with family life and private relations, sometimes with breaches of political duty. Certain professions, such as that of an actor or gladiator, also invoked their stigma, and at times the disqualifications they pronounced were the consequence of a previous judicial condemnation. Infamia was the general name given to the disabilities pronounced by the censor. These varied in degree from the deprivation of a senator of his seat, or a knight’s loss of his horse, to exclusion from the tribes or centuries, an exclusion which entailed the loss of voting power. All the disabilities pronounced by one pair of censors might be removed by their successors.
The censorship, although its control over the senate came to
