Roman Senate
The Roman Senate was the highest and constituting assembly of ancient Rome and its aristocracy. With different powers throughout its existence, it lasted from the first days of the city of Rome as the Senate of the Roman Kingdom, to the Senate of the Roman Republic and Senate of the Roman Empire and eventually the Byzantine Senate of the Eastern Roman Empire, existing well into the post-classical era and Middle Ages.
During the days of the Roman Kingdom, the Senate was generally little more than an advisory council to the king. However, as Rome was an electoral monarchy, the Senate also elected new Roman kings. The last king of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, was overthrown following a coup d'état led by Lucius Junius Brutus, who founded the Roman Republic. During the early Republic, the Senate was politically weak, while the various executive Roman magistrates who appointed the senators for life were quite powerful. Since the transition from monarchy to constitutional rule was most likely gradual, it took several generations before the Senate was able to assert itself over the executive magistrates. By the middle Republic, the Senate had reached the apex of its republican power. The late Republic saw a decline in the Senate's power, which began following the reforms of the tribunes Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus. After the transition of the Republic into the Principate, the Senate lost much of its political power as well as its prestige.
Following the constitutional reforms of Emperor Diocletian, the Senate became politically irrelevant. When the seat of government was transferred out of Rome, the Senate was reduced to a purely municipal body. That decline in status was reinforced when Constantine the Great created an additional senate in Constantinople. After Romulus Augustulus was deposed in 476, the Senate in the Western Empire functioned under the rule of Odoacer and during Ostrogothic rule. It was restored to its official status after the reconquest of Italy by Justinian I but the Western Senate ultimately disappeared after 603, the date of its last recorded public act. Some Roman aristocrats in the Middle Ages bore the title senator, but it was by this point a purely honorific title and does not reflect the continued existence of the classical Senate.
The Eastern Senate survived in Constantinople through the 13th century.
Although the Latin Senatus was the origin of the modern-day concept of the senate in etymological sense, the Roman Senate was not the ancestor or predecessor of parliamentarism and modern senatorial structures in any direct sense, as the Roman senate was not a de jure legislative body.
History
Senate of the Roman Kingdom
The senate was a political institution in the ancient Roman Kingdom. The Latin word senatus, borrowed into English as senate, is derived from senex ; the word thus means. The prehistoric Indo-Europeans who settled Italy in the centuries before the founding of Rome in 753 BC were structured into tribal communities, and these communities often included an aristocratic board of tribal elders.The early Roman family was called a gens or "clan", and each clan was an aggregation of families under a common living male patriarch, called a pater. When the early Roman gentes were aggregating to form a common community, the patres from the leading clans were selected for the confederated board of elders that would become the Roman senate. Over time, the patres came to recognize the need for a single leader, and so they elected a king, and vested in him their sovereign power. When the king died, that sovereign power naturally reverted to the patres.
The senate is said to have been created by Rome's first king, Romulus, initially consisting of 100 men. The descendants of those 100 men subsequently became the patrician class. Rome's fifth king, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, chose a further 100 senators. They were chosen from the minor leading families, and were accordingly called the patres minorum gentium.
Rome's seventh and final king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, executed many of the leading men in the senate, and did not replace them, thereby diminishing their number. In 509 BC Rome's first and third consuls, Lucius Junius Brutus and Publius Valerius Publicola chose from amongst the leading equites new men for the senate, called conscripti, and increased the size of the senate to 300.
The senate of the Roman Kingdom held three principal responsibilities: It functioned as the ultimate repository for the executive power, it served as the king's council, and it functioned as a legislative body in concert with the people of Rome. During the years of the monarchy, the senate's most important function was to elect new kings. While the king was nominally elected by the people, it was actually the senate who chose each new king.
The period between the death of one king and the election of a new king was called the interregnum, during which time the Interrex nominated a candidate to replace the king. After the senate gave its initial approval to the nominee, he was then formally elected by the people, and then received the senate's final approval. At least one king, Servius Tullius, was elected by the senate alone, and not by the people.
The senate's most significant task, outside regal elections, was to function as the king's council, and while the king could ignore any advice it offered, its growing prestige helped make the advice that it offered increasingly difficult to ignore. Only the king could make new laws, although he often involved both the senate and the curiate assembly in the process.
Senate of the Roman Republic
When the Republic began, the Senate functioned as a special committee. It consisted of 300–500 senators who served for life. Only patricians were members in the early period. Plebeians were admitted later, although they were denied the senior magistracies for a longer period.The Senate held the fiscal responsibilities of the Roman Republic's treasury, holding a regulatory power over incoming and outgoing transactions. The Senate was ultimately in charge of creating and maintaining public buildings, as only they had the power to distribute grants to the Censors. The Senate also oversaw judicial proceedings in extreme cases of violent offenses in Italy. At the request of allies of Italy, the Senate could oversee their judicial proceedings on extreme cases requiring further investigation as well. The Senate was also in charge of diplomatic measures in the representation of the Roman Republic.
Senators were entitled to wear a toga with a broad purple stripe, maroon shoes, and an iron, later gold, ring.
The Senate of the Roman Republic passed decrees called Senatus consultum, which in form constituted "advice" from the senate to a magistrate. While these decrees did not hold legal force, they usually were obeyed in practice.
If a senatus consultum conflicted with a law that was passed by an assembly, the law overrode the senatus consultum because the senatus consultum had its authority based on precedent and not in law. A senatus consultum, however, could serve to interpret a law.
Through these decrees, the senate directed the magistrates, especially the Roman Consuls, in their prosecution of military conflicts. The senate also had an enormous degree of power over the civil government in Rome. This was especially the case with regard to its management of state finances, as only it could authorize the disbursal of public funds from the treasury. As the Roman Republic grew, the senate also supervised the administration of the provinces, which were governed by former consuls and praetors, in that it decided which magistrate should govern which province.
Since the 3rd century BC, the senate played a pivotal role in cases of emergency. It could call for the appointment of a dictator, a right resting with each consul with or without the senate's involvement. After 202 BC, the office of dictator fell out of use, and was revived only two more times. It was replaced with the senatus consultum ultimum, a senatorial decree that authorised the consuls to employ any means necessary to solve the crisis.
While senate meetings could take place either inside or outside the formal boundary of the city, no meeting could take place more than a mile outside it. The senate operated while under religious restrictions. For example, before any meeting could begin, a sacrifice to the gods was made, and a search for divine omens was taken. The senate was only allowed to assemble in places dedicated to the gods.
Meetings usually began at dawn, and a magistrate who wished to summon the senate had to issue a compulsory order. The senate meetings were public and directed by a presiding magistrate, usually a consul. While in session, the senate had the power to act on its own, and even against the will of the presiding magistrate if it wished. The presiding magistrate began each meeting with a speech, then referred an issue to the senators, who would discuss it in order of seniority.
Senators had several other ways in which they could influence, or frustrate, a presiding magistrate. For example, every senator was permitted to speak before a vote could be held, and since all meetings had to end by nightfall, a dedicated group or even a single senator could talk a proposal to death. When it was time to call a vote, the presiding magistrate could bring up whatever proposals he wished, and every vote was between a proposal and its negative.
Despite dictators holding nominal power, the senate could veto any of the dictator's decisions. At any point before a motion passed, the proposed motion could be vetoed, usually by a tribune. If there was no veto, and the matter was of minor importance, it could be put to either a voice vote or a show of hands. If there was no veto and no obvious majority, and the matter was of a significant nature, there was usually a physical division of the house, with senators voting by taking a place on either side of the chamber.
Senate membership was controlled by the censors. By the time of Augustus, ownership of property worth at least one million sesterces was required for membership. The ethical requirements of senators were significant. In contrast to members of the Equestrian order, senators could not engage in banking or any form of public contract. They could not own a ship that was large enough to participate in foreign commerce, they could not leave Italy without permission from the rest of the senate and they were not paid a salary. Election to magisterial office resulted in automatic senate membership.