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 the 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 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.