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 in Aequiculus is long—Virgil, Aen. vii. 74—which seems to connect it with the locative of aequum “a plain,” so that it would mean “dwellers in the plain”; but in the historical period they certainly lived mainly in the hills), we should know whether they were to be grouped with the q or the p dialects, that is to say, with Latin on the one hand, which preserved an original q, or with the dialect of Velitrae, commonly called Volscian (and the Volsci were the constant allies of the Aequi), on the other hand, in which, as in the Iguvine and Samnite dialects, an original q is changed into p. There is no decisive evidence to show whether the q in Latin aequus represents an Indo-European q as in Latin quis, Umbro-Volsc. pis, or an Indo-European k+u as in equus, Umb. ekvo-. The derivative adjective Aequicus might be taken to range them with the Volsci rather than the Sabini, but it is not clear that this adjective was ever used as a real ethnicon; the name of the tribe is always Aequi, or Aequicoli.

At the end of the Republican period the Aequi appear, under the name Aequiculi or Aequicoli, organized as a municipium, the territory of which seems to have comprised the upper part of the valley of the Salto, still known as Cicolano. It is probable, however, that they continued to live in their villages as before. Of these Nersae (mod. Nesce) was the most considerable. The polygonal terrace walls, which exist in considerable numbers in the district, are shortly described in Römische Mitteilungen (1903), 147 seq., but require further study.

AERARII (from Lat. aes, in its subsidiary sense of “poll-tax”), originally 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 (1) 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 (353 ); hence the expression “in tabulas Caeritum referre” came to mean “to degrade to the status of an aerarius”: (2) full citizens subjected to civil degradation (infamia) as the result of following certain professions (e.g. acting), of dishonourable acts in private life (e.g. bigamy) or of conviction for certain crimes; (3) persons branded 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 Mommsen, 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 in 312 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 (country) to a lower (city) 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 A. H. J. 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 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 (Madvig); identical with the capite censi of the Servian constitution (Belot, Greenidge).

AERARIUM (from Lat. aes, in its derived sense of “money”) the name (in full, aerarium stabulum, treasure-house) given in ancient Rome to the public treasury, and in a secondary sense to the public finances. The treasury contained the moneys and accounts of the state, and also the standards of the legions; the public laws engraved on brass, the decrees of the senate and other papers and registers of importance. These public treasures were deposited in the temple of Saturn, on the eastern slope of the Capitoline hill, and, during the republic, were in charge of the urban quaeators (see ), under the superintendence and control of the senate. This arrangement continued (except for the year 45, when no quaestors were chosen) until 28 , when Augustus transferred the aerarium to two praefecti aerarii, chosen annually by the senate from ex-praetors; in 23 these were replaced by two praetors (praetores aerarii or ad aerarium), selected by lot during their term of office; Claudius in 44 restored the quaestors, but nominated by the emperor for three years, for whom Nero in 56 substituted two ex-praetors, under the same conditions. In addition to the common treasury, supported by the general taxes and charged with the ordinary expenditure, there was a special reserve fund, also in the temple of Saturn, the aerarium sanctum (or sanctius), probably originally consisting of the spoils of war, afterwards maintained chiefly by a 5% tax on the value of all manumitted slaves, this source of revenue being established by a lex Manlia in 357. This fund was not to be touched except in cases of extreme necessity (Livy vii. 16, xxvii. 10). Under the emperors the senate continued to have at least the nominal management of the aerarium, while the emperor had a separate exchequer, called fiscus. But after a time, as the power of the emperors increased and their jurisdiction extended till the senate existed only in form and name, this distinction virtually ceased. Besides creating the fiscus, Augustus also established in 6 a military treasury (aerarium militare), containing all moneys raised for and appropriated to the maintenance of the army, including a pension fund for disabled soldiers. It was largely endowed by the emperor himself (see Monumentum Ancyranum, iii. 35) and supported by the proceeds of the tax on public sales and the succession duty. Its administration was in the hands of three praefecti aerarii militaris, at first appointed by lot, but afterwards by the emperor, from senators of praetorian rank, for three years. The later emperors had a separate aerarium privatum, containing the moneys allotted for their own use, distinct from the fiscus, which they administered in the interests of the empire.

The tribuni aerarii have been the subject of much discussion. They are supposed by some to be identical with the curatores tribuum, and to have been the officials who, under the Servian organization, levied the war-tax (tributum) in the tribes and the poll-tax on the  (q.v.). They also acted as paymasters of the equites and of the soldiers on service in each tribe. By the lex Aurelia (70 ) the list of judices was composed, in addition to senators and equites, of tribuni aerarii. Whether these were the successors of the above, or a new order closely connected with the equites, or even the same as the latter, is uncertain. According to Mommsen, they were persons who possessed the equestrian census, but no public horse. They were removed from the list of judices by Caesar, but replaced by Augustus. According to Madvig, the original tribuni aerarii were not officials at all, but private individuals of considerable means, quite distinct from the curatores tribuum, who undertook certain financial work connected with their own tribes. Then, as in the case of the equites, the term was subsequently extended to include all those who possessed the property qualification that would have entitled them to serve as tribuni aerarii.

AERATED WATERS. Waters charged with a larger proportion of carbon dioxide than they will dissolve at ordinary