The Ancient Roman Senate a

THE ANCIENT ROMAN SENATE (A) senate or council of elders formed the most permanent element in the Roman Constitution. The authori ties ascribe its origin to Romulus, who chose out loo of the best of his subjects to form an advisory council. In 5o9 B.C. it con tained Soo members, and a distinction existed within it between patres maiorum gentium and minorum gentium, the heads of the greater and the lesser families. Throughout the monarchical period the senate consisted entirely of patricians. There is some con nexion between the increase in the numbers of the senate and the distinction between two classes of patres. Probably the rise in the number of the senators was due to the incorporation of fresh elements into the patrician community, with an increase of gentes (families) ; and the new clans were the gentes minores (lesser families). The appointment of senators depended entirely upon the king. It is possible that a king might change his advisers during his reign, and a new king could certainly abstain from summoning some of those convened by his predecessors. The powers of the senate at this time were very indefinite.

Under the Republic.

The abolition of monarchy and the substitution of two elected consuls did not at first bring any im portant change in the position of the senate. It was the advisory council of the consuls, meeting only at their pleasure, and owing its appointment to them, and remained a power secondary to the magistrates, as it had been to the king. Tradition ascribes to the first consuls some change in the class from which senators were drawn. Whatever the nature of the change, plebeians were not introduced into the senate at this time. Such a change is utterly improbable after the success of a patrician coup d'etat, such as the expulsion of the Tarquins ; and there is no evidence for the ex istence of a plebeian senator before the year 401 B.C. In one respect, the substitution of consuls for kings tended to the sub ordination of the chief magistrates to the senate. The consuls held office only for one year, while the senate was a permanent body; in experience and prestige, its individual members were often superior to the consuls of the year. The magistrate would seldom venture to disregard the advice of the senate, especially as he himself would, in accordance with steadily growing custom, become a senator at the end of his year of office. It was probably in their capacity of ex-magistrates that plebeians first entered the senate ; the first plebeian senator mentioned by Livy, P. Licinius Calvus, was also the first plebeian consular tribune. Of the two powers which the senate inherited from the monarchy, the inter regnum and the patrum auctoritas, the first had become rarer of exercise than before ; for if either consul existed, interregnum could not be resorted to. The patrum auctoritas, however, de veloped into a definite right claimed by the senate to give or withhold its consent to any act of the comitia (q.v.). The influence which it had long exercised over foreign policy increased the im portance of the senate in a period of constant warfare with the nations of Italy. But in the early republic, the senate remained an advising body, and assumed no definite executive powers.

In the last two centuries of the republic, a great change took place in the position of the senate. It became a self-existent, auto matically constituted body, independent of the annual magistrates, a recognized factor in the Constitution, with extensive powers. Its self-existence was effected by entrusting the selection to the censors. The censorship (q.v.) was instituted in 443 B•c•, and some time before the year 311 it was placed in charge of the lectio senatus. Conditions of selection had been imposed by 311, which made the constitution of the senate practically automatic. Ex curule magistrates (see CURULE) were entitled to admission to gether with other persons who had done conspicuous public service ; and for some time bef ore Sulla's dictatorship little power of choice can really have rested with the censors. Sulla secured an automatic composition for the senate by increasing the number of quaestors, and enacting that all ex-quaestors should pass at once into the senate. This enactment provided for the maintenance

of the number of senators, 20 ex-quaestors passing in every year. The senate's powers had now extended beyond its ancient preroga tives of appointing an interrex, and ratifying decisions of the comitia. The first of these powers had fallen into practical disuse, and the second had become a mere form by the last century of the republic. But the senate had acquired more effective control through the observance of certain unwritten rules regulating the relation between senate and magistrates. It was understood that the magistrate should not question the people on any important matter without the senate's consent, nor refuse to do so at its request ; that one magistrate should not employ his veto to quash the act of another except at the senate's bidding, nor refuse to do so when directed.. The earlier influence upon foreign policy de veloped into a definite claim put forward by the senate to conduct all negotiations with a foreign power, the terms being submitted to the people for ratification. For the organization of a new Roman province, even this formal ratification was dispensed with, and a commission of senators alone aided the victorious general in the organization of his conquests. The senate also acquired the right to distribute spheres of rule among the various magistrates. The control of finance was in the senate's hands. Three circumstances had combined to bring about this result. The censors, who were only occasional officials, were entrusted with the leasing of the public revenues ; the senate directed the arrangements made by them. The details of public expenditure were entrusted to the quaestors, who when the magistracies were multiplied, occupied an entirely subordinate position ; this strengthened the position of the senate as the natural director of young and inexperienced magistrates. Thirdly, the general control exercised by the senate over provincial affairs implied its direction of the income derived from the provinces, which in the later republic formed the chief property of the State. It claimed a right, unchallenged till the time of Tiberius Gracchus, of granting occupation and decreeing alienation of public lands. Every branch of State finance was therefore in its hands. In matters of criminal jurisdiction, the senate claimed the right to set free, by its decree in case of emergency (decretum ultimum) the full powers of coercitio con tained in the imperium of a magistrate, but limited normally in capital cases by laws of appeal. The exercise of this right amounted to a declaration of martial law. It was only resorted to in cases of special urgency, such as the epidemic of poisoning in 331 s.c., and the formidable preponderance of the revolutionary tribune Tiberius Gracchus in 133 B.C. The action of the senate on this last occasion evoked a vigorous protest from the people, and a law of C. Gracchus subsequently forbade any such exercise of capital jurisdiction on the part of a magistrate. The senate continued, however, to make use of this decree, and the question of its right to do so was one of the chief points at issue in the final struggle between the senatorial and democratic parties. The best known instance of this decretum ultimum is that of 63 B.C., when Cicero took summary action against the Catilinarians, and justified his action on the plea that the decree had authorized him to do so. The chief feature of the democratic revolution at Rome which occupied the century following the tribunate of T. Gracchus was opposition to the tenure of these extensive powers by the senate. Sulla's enactments in 81 B.C., which aimed at restoring its ascendancy, show how much power it had already lost ; and his attempts to reinstate it were short-lived (see ROME: History). The Gracchi and Caesar alike found themselves obliged to override senatorial prerogative in the interests of progress, and the senate never regained the popular confidence.