n per thousand. The Central Provinces were
stricken by another famine, yet more severe and widespread, caused by
the complete failure of the rains in 1899. The maximum of persons
relieved for the whole province was 1,971,000 in June 1900. In addition,
about 68,000 persons were in receipt of relief in the native states.
During the three years 1899-1902 the total expenditure on famine relief
amounted to about four millions sterling. Berar also suffered from the
famines of 1897 and 1900.

See _The Imperial Gazetteer of India_ (Oxford, 1908), x. 99, for list
of authorities.

CENTUMVIRI (_centum_, hundred; _vir_, man), an ancient court of civil
jurisdiction at Rome, probably instituted by Servius Tullius.[1] Its
antiquity is attested by the symbol and formula used in its procedure,
the lance (_hasta_) as the sign of true ownership, the oath or wager
(_sacramentum_), the ancient formula for recovery of property or
assertion of liberty. It is probably alluded to in Livy's account of the
Valerio-Horatian laws of 449 B.C. (Livy iii. 55, _Consules ... fecerunt
sanciendo ut qui tribunis plebis, aedilibus, judicibus, decemviris
nocuisset, ejus caput Jovi sacrum esset_). If the _judices_ here
mentioned are the _centumviri_, it is clear that they formed a tribunal
which represented the interests of the _plebs_. This is in accordance
with Cicero's account (_de Orat._ i. 38. 173) of the sphere of their
jurisdiction. He says this was mainly concerned with the property of
which account was taken at the census; it was therefore in their power
to make or unmake a citizen. They also decided questions concerning
debt. Hence the _plebs_ had an interest in securing their decisions
against undue influence. They were never regarded as magistrates, but
merely as _judices_, and as such would be appointed for a fixed term of
service by the magistrate, probably by the _praetor urbanus_. But in
Cicero's time they were elected by the _Comitia Tributa_. They then
numbered 105. Their original number is uncertain. It was probably
increased by Augustus and in Pliny's time had reached 180. The office
was probably open in quite early times to both patricians and plebeians.
The term is also applied in the inscriptions of Veii to the municipal
senates and Cures, which numbered 100 members.

AUTHORITIES.--Tigerstrom, _De Judicibus apud Romanos_ (Berlin, 1826);
Greenidge, _Legal Procedure of Cicero's Time_, pp. 40 ff., 58 ff., 182
ff., 264 (O