Roman senate

Roman senate governing council of the Roman republic. It was the outgrowth of the council of the kings. By the 3d cent. BC the senate was a group of 300 men with a high degree of political, legislative, and administrative power at Rome. There were serious checks on its power, especially in the hands of the tribunes. The members were chosen by the censors and included theoretically the best citizens; but as it worked out, the senate consisted of ex-magistrates, almost entirely members of a small number of old families from either the patrician or plebeian classes. Membership was usually for life. In the expansion of Rome in the 3d and 2d cent. BC the senate sent out the armies, made the treaties, organized the new domain, and controlled finance. The senatorial conduct of Roman affairs was fairly successful until c.130 BC After that the senate's provincial administration of the huge empire was increasingly inefficient and graft-ridden. However, the authority of the senate was not called into question until the growth of party-class division that developed with the agitation of the Gracchi . The leaders of the senate became also the leaders of the most reactionary group and would yield on no point, economic or political. The fatal development in the republic of two parties, optimates (the senatorial conservatives) and populares, grew out of this resistance to change. The optimates tried to foster the idea that they represented constitutionalism versus subversion, but after Sulla , who combined the bloodiest illegality with the strictest defense of the senate (which he raised to 600 members), such a claim by optimates was hypocritical and cynical. Caesar enlarged the number of the senate to 900. The ruin of the optimates and the senate was accomplished in the proscription of 43 BC after Caesar's assassination. After the proscription what was left of the senate was docile and ineffectual. Augustus lowered the number to 600. As an administrator he found he had to reduce senatorial control in the provinces. Under the principate the senate became a somewhat less hereditary body and gradually came to include provincials from most regions of the empire. It continued to include many of the empire's leading soldiers and administrators, until it lost much influence in the troubles of the 3d cent. AD In the later Roman Empire, it retained some prestige, but very little power. Under Byzantine rule in the 6th cent., the senate disappeared.

Bibliography: See M. Gelzer, The Roman Nobility (1969); R. J. A. Talbert, The Senate of Imperial Rome (1984).

Roman Senate The assembly of the landed aristocracy and PATRICIANS, which originated in the royal council of the kings of Rome. Entry widened to include those of plebeian origin by the late 4th century BC. A membership of 600 established by SULLA was standard although it rose to 900 in CAESAR'S time. This advisory body consisted of hereditary (patrician) and life (conscript) members, the latter being ex-magistrates. It was summoned by the consuls as chief magistrates and passed decrees, which were ratified by the people in assembly. It was expected that all magistrates would submit proposals to the Senate before putting them to the people. This procedure began to be flouted from the time of the Gracchi onwards. Its power was real but informal, based on prestige and wealth. Even the emperors made at least the token gesture of consulting the ‘Fathers’. Until the 3rd century AD all bronze coinage carried the mark ‘By Consultative Decree of the Senate’.

Senate, Roman Chief governing body of the Roman republic. It originated as a royal council under the early kings. By the 2nd century bc, it controlled all matters of policy. Senators were chosen for life by the censors and at first were mainly former consuls. They numbered 300, raised to 600 under Sulla, to 900 by Caesar, and reduced to 600 under Augustus. Plebeians gained entry in the 4th century bc. Under the Empire, the Emperor's control of military and civil officials gradually restricted the Senate to judicial matters and to the city government in Rome. Under the late Empire, senatorial status was extended on a massive scale to the landowning élite.