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[Note: I found this from Livy dealing with censors and their terms of office. I thought it might be appropriate given the current discussions in Nova Roma. It is long, but I thught it instrcutive -- Lucius Quintius Constantius]
From Livy, History of Rome, Book IX, chapters 33 and 34:
33. Quintus Fabius, consul for the ensuing year, succeeded to the command of the army of Sutrium; the colleague given to him was Caius Marcius Rutilius. On the one side, Fabius brought with him a reinforcement from Rome, and on the other, a new army had been sent for, and came from home, to the Etrurians. Many years had now passed without any disputes between the patrician magistrates and plebeian tribunes, when a contest took its rise from that family, which seemed raised by fate as antagonists to the tribunes and commons of those times; Appius Claudius, being censor, when the eighteen months had expired, which was the time limited by the Aemilian law for the duration of the censorship, although his colleague Caius Plautinus had already resigned his office, could not be prevailed on, by any means, to give up his. There was a tribune of the commons, Publius Sempronius; he undertook to enforce a legal process for terminating the censorship within the lawful time, which was not more popular than just, nor more pleasing to the people generally than to every man of character in the city. After he frequently appealed to the Aemilian law, and bestowed commendations on Mamercus Aemilius, who, in his dictatorship, had been the author of it, for having contracted, within the space of a year and six months, the censorship, which formerly lasted five years, and was a power which in consequence of its long continuance, often became tyrannical, he proceeded thus: "Tell me, Appius Claudius, in what manner you would have acted, had you been censor, at the time when Caius Furius and Marcus Geganius were censors?" Appius insisted that "the tribune's question was irrelevant to his case. For, although the Aemilian law might bind those censors, during whose magistracy it was passed, because the people made that law after they had become censors; and whatever order is the last passed by the people, that is held to be the law, and valid: yet neither he, nor any of those who had been created censors subsequent to the passing of that law, could be bound by it."
34. While Appius urged such frivolous arguments as these, which carried no conviction whatever, the other said, "Behold, Romans, the offspring of that Appius, who being created decemvir for one year, created himself for a second; and who, during a third, without being created either by himself or by any other, held on the fasces and the government though a private individual; nor ceased to continue in office, until the government itself, ill acquired, ill administered, and ill retained, overwhelmed him in ruin. This is the same family, Romans, by whose violence and injustice you were compelled to banish yourselves from your native city, and seize on the Sacred Mount; the same, against which you provided for yourselves the protection of the tribunes; the same, on account of which two armies of you took post on the Aventine; the same, which violently opposed the laws against usury, and always the agrarian laws; the same, which broke through the right of intermarriage between the patricians and the commons; the same, which shut up the road to curule offices against the commons: this is a name, more hostile to your liberty by far, than that of the Tarquins. I pray you, Appius Claudius, though this is now the hundredth year since the dictatorship of Mamercus Aemilius, though there have been so many men of the highest characters and abilities censors, did none of these ever read the Twelve Tables? None of them know, that, whatever was the last order of the people, that was the law? Nay, certainly they all knew it; and they therefore obeyed the Aemilian law, rather than the old one, under which the censors had been at first created; because it was the last order; and because, when two laws are contradictory, the new always repeals the old. Do you mean to say, Appius, that the people are not bound by the Aemilian law? Or, that the people are bound, and you alone exempted? The Aemilian law bound those violent censors, Caius Furius and Marcus Geganius, who showed what mischief that office might do in the State; when, out of resentment for the limitation of their power, they disfranchised Mamercus Aemilius, the first man of the age, either in war or peace. It bound all the censors thenceforward, during the space of a hundred years. It binds Caius Plautinus your colleague, created under the same auspices, with the same privileges. Did not the people create him with the fullest privileges with which any censor was ever created? Or is your an excepted case, in which this peculiarity and singularity takes place? Shall the person, whom you create king of the sacrifices, laying hold of the style of sovereignity, say, thate he was created with the fullest privileges with which any king was ever created at Rome? Who then, do you think, would be content with a dictatorship of six months? Who, with the office of interrex for five days? Whom would you, with confidence, create dictator, for the purpose of driving the nail, or of exhibiting games? How foolish, how stupid, do you think, those must appear in this man's eyes, who, after performing most important services, abdicated the dictatorship within the twentieth day; or who, being irregularly created, resigned their office? Why should I bring instances from antiquity? Lately, within these last ten years, Caius Maenius, dictator, having enforced inquiries, with more strictness than consisted with the safety of some powerful men, a charge was thrown out by his enemies, that he himself was infected with the very crime against which his inquiries were directed; now Maenius, I say, in order that he might, in a private capacity, meet the imputation, abdicated the censorship. I expect not such moderation in you; you will not degenerate from your family, of all others the most imperious and assuming; nor resign your office a day, nor even a hour, before you are forced to it. Be it so: but then let no one exceed the time limited. It is enough to add a day, a month, to the censorship. But Appius says, I will hold the censorship, and hold it alone, three years and six months longer than is allowed by the Aemilian law. Surely this is like kingly power. Or will you fill up the vacancy with another colleague, a proceeding not allowable, even in the case of a death of a censor? You are not satisfied that, as if a religious censor, you have degraded a most ancient solemnity, and the only one instituted by the very deity to whom it is performed, from priests of that rite who were of the highest rank to the ministry of mere servants. [You are not satisfied that] a family, more ancient than the origin of the this city, and sanctified by an intercourse of hospitality with the immortal gods, has, by means of you and your censorship, been utterly extirpated, with all its branches, within the space of a year, unless you involve the whole commonwealth in horrid guilt, which my mind feels a horror even to contemplate. This city was taken in that lustrum in which Lucius Papirius Cursor, on the death of his colleague Julius, the censor, rather than resign his office, substituted Marcus Cornelius Maluginensis. Yet how much more moderate was his ambition, Appius, than yours! Lucius Papirius neither held the censorship alone, nor beyond the time prescribed by law. But still he found no one who would follow his example; all succeeding censors, in case of the death of a colleague, abdicated the office. As for you, neither the expiration of the time of your censorship, nor the resignation of your colleague, nor law, nor shame restrains you. You make fortitude to consist in arrogance, in boldness, in a contempt of gods and men. Appius Claudius, in consideration of the dignity and respect due to that office which you have borne, I should be sorry, not only to offer you personal violence, but even to address you in language too severe. With respect to what I have hitherto said, your pride and obstinacy forced me to speak. And now, unless you pay obedience to the Aemilian law, I shall order you to be led to prison. Nor, since a rule has been stablished by our ancestors, that in the election of censors unless two shall obtain the legal number of suffrages, neither shall be returned, but the election deferred, will I suffer you, who could not singly be created censor, to hold the censorship without a colleague." Having spoken to this effect he ordered the censor to be seized, and borne to prison. But although six of the tribunes approved of the proceeding of their colleague, three gave their support to Appius, on his appealing to them, and he held the censorhsip alone, to the great disgust of all ranks of men.
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