User:Ifly6/Senate of the Roman Republic

The Senate had to be called to meet by a presiding magistrate, usually a consul or praetor, who specified a time and place for senators to assemble. Meetings could go from dawn to dusk, and because of their regularity, senators were required to live close to Rome so to be available.

File:Curia Julia.jpg and completed by his adoptive heir Octavian in 29 BC. ]]

There was no fixed meeting place for the Senate. The most common place was that on the Forum where the curia Hostilia, later replaced by the curiae Cornelia and then Julia, stood. However, temples outside the boundaries of the city (the pomerium) were also common meeting places, especially so that promagistrates could report to and participate in senatorial discussions without losing their commands by crossing into the pomerium.

OTHER CURIA IN TOWN

EX-URBAN MEETINGS?

The agenda was set by the presiding magistrate. However, members on the floor could ask for and receive consultation on different questions.

It was customary for the presiding magistrate to call on senators by rank. This rank was determined mainly by how far up the cursus honorum a senator had ascended. That is to say, senators who had served in the senior magistracies such as consul and praetor were called upon first. While the magistrate could dissolve the meeting at any time, it was expected that he would continue until the body requested a vote, no further senators sought recognition, or night fell.

Senators when recognised could speak on any topic. For example, in 43 BC, Cicero responded to a question brought by one of the consuls relating to the via Appia and the mint by beginning a speech against Mark Antony, the Seventh Philippic, saying "although the solution of these matters seems easy, my mind wanders from the proposed agenda, in suspense over greater problems".{{harvnb|Lintott|1999|p=80}}, citing {{harvnb|Cicero, Philippicae|loc=7.1, Quarum rerum etsi facilis explicatio videtur, tamen animus aberrat a sententia suspensus curis maioribus}}. He concluded the speech by returning to the matter and expressing agreement with one of this colleagues. {{harvnb|Cicero, Philippicae|loc=7.27}}: Quibus de rebus refers, P. Servilio adsentior [As to the matters you refer, I agree with Publius Servilius].

Whatever the Senate resolved was put before a vote. This could be a voice vote, but they could otherwise demand a division of the chamber. The opinion of the Senate was then recorded. If the proceedings were vetoed by one of the consuls or plebeian tribune, it was formally void but regardless recorded as a senatus auctoritas. Otherwise, it was recorded and deposited in the public treasury (the aerarium), registered as a senatus consultum.{{sfn|Lintott|1999|pp=84–85}}

During the classical republic, the Senate had a directory role in public affairs. Although its powers were formally only advisory,

AUCTORITAS

{{see also|Conflict of the Orders}}

The Senate predated the republic, which was formed {{circa|500 BC}} (traditionally dated to 509 BC) with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy. Indeed, the Roman tradition held that the Senate went back to the start of the regal period, called informally to advise the kings.{{sfn|Mouritsen|2017|p=20}} The Senate also held the ancient power to select the king, which was still exercised into the late republic,The year 52 BC saw multiple interreges, amid a prolonged failure to elect the consuls. {{harvnb|Broughton|1952|pp=236–37}}; {{Cite journal |last=Ramsey |first=John T |date=2016 |title=How and why was Pompey made sole consul in 52 BC? |jstor=45019234 |journal=Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte |volume=65 |issue=3 |pages=298–324 |issn=0018-2311 |ref=none |mode=cs2 }}. by appointing an interrex from among the patricians who each held office for five days, before presenting a royal candidate to the people for ratification, not of their own number.{{sfn|Cornell|1995|pp=142–43}} The patricians' role in this process was also effused with religious significance, as it was they who conferred the auspices (the right to consult the gods) on the king and, later, the other magistrates.{{sfn|Cornell|1995|p=143}}

At the beginning of the republic, it continued to serve its advisory role for the magistrates. However, the makeup of these early senates is not clear. The Roman tradition held that the senators, called {{lang|la|patres}}, were themselves the clan leaders of patrician clans. However, the distinction in Latin between {{lang|la|patres}} and {{lang|la|conscripti}} ("those enrolled") indicates that beyond the patrician families there were also other men added to the Senate by the choice of the magistrates.{{sfn|Cornell|1995|pp=246–27, noting also that the traditional view that all patricians were senators and vice versa has "serious difficulties" and that he "doubt[s] if it can be right"}} However, these non-patrician members over the course of the first decades of the republic, came to be excluded by patrician monopolisation of political office amid attempts to create a closed aristocracy.{{sfn|Cornell|1995|p=251, rejecting the tradition of patrician dominance through the regal period and noting that the "closing of the patriciate" in the early fifth century BC is "widely accepted"}}

The Conflict of the Orders between the patricians and the plebeians that started in the early fifth century BC after the creation of the republic placed into the forefront the auctoritas patrum, which required that decisions of the comitia – mainly in the form of legislation or elections – be approved by the Senate before coming into effect.{{sfn|Mouritsen|2017|p=20}} The lex Publilia of 399 BC and the lex Maenia later in the third century instead required that approvals come before the passage of legislation or calling of elections.{{sfn|Mouritsen|2017|p=20}} The exact nature of this auctoritas patrum is unclear. No records exist of its being withheld, leading some to suggest that it was a formality or that it was coterminous with the requirement to hold auspices before votes.{{harvnb|Mouritsen|2017|pp=20–21}}, citing {{cite journal |last=Giovannini |first=Adalberto |year=1985 |title=Auctoritas patrum |journal=Museum Helveticum |language=fr |jstor=24816703 |volume=42 |pages=28–36 |mode=cs2 |ref=none}}. Alternatively, if auctoritas patrum applied only to the centuriate assembly, then it may have tied the curule magistrates more closely to senatorial opinion by restricting their ability to propose laws to the people.{{sfn|Forsythe|2005|pp=275–76}}

END OF THE CONFLICT OF THE ORDERS?

While by the late fourth century it is likely that the Senate's membership had become permanent in a de facto sense – each successive consular pair keeping the members called by the previous pair – the senators as a class only became fully established after the lex Ovinia. The law, passed some time between 339 and 318 BC, required that the censors periodically revise the roll of senators, stripping the consuls of that authority. While what is now known of the law is merely that the censors were directed to enrol "the best men", there were likely more specific regulations and they certainly included enrolment of former consuls, praetors, and censors.{{sfn|Cornell|1995|pp=369–70}}

The political character of the fourth century was likely centred on charismatic magistrates holding office and cultivating support in the assemblies. This institutional arrangement was suitable for the then-compact Roman city state.{{sfn|Cornell|1995|p=370}} The emergence of the Senate as the coordinating and directing body of government started during Rome's expansion across Italy.{{sfnm|Forsythe|2005|1p=276|Cornell|1995|2p=370}} The growth of the Rome's territories and the complexity of managing the state's foreign entanglements caused the empowering of the only permanent institution in the state. The openness of debate in the Senate, compared to the up-or-down votes in the assembly, also capitalised on the senators' experience, giving it de facto administrative powers over financial, foreign, and logistical matters.{{sfn|Cornell|1995|p=373}} The passage of the lex Genucia in 342 BC clamped down on repeated consulships.

The Punic wars, however, saw the senate and its members start to fully direct public affairs. This developed from the necessity during the conflicts of a coordinating committee for the

The war of Mutina in 43 BC was the last time the republican senate exercised an independent directorial role over the state. Its defeat by Caesar's heir Octavian led to the passage of the lex Titia and the creation of the Triumvirate, which gave the three triumvirs the leading role in the state. While Octavian appeared to magnanimously hand public affairs back to the Senate in his settlements, the Senate no longer had its leading role to play, that role having been taken by the emperors.

{{main|Senatus consultum ultimum}}

In 121 BC onwards, Gaius Gracchus was killed in consequence of a senatorial decree directing the consul Lucius Opimius to do whatever it took to suppress Gracchus' occupation of the Aventine Hill and rejection of state authority. This set the precedent that the Senate by decree could direct magistrates to

Membership in the Senate was an honour.

SOCIAL STATUS OF SENATORS; CORPORATE IDENTITY

The number of senators changed during the republic. At the end of the republic, the continued addition of senators expanded the house considerably from its traditional size of around 300.

Further legislation brought in the second century required the censors to progressively enrol more junior magistrates: ex-aediles (the lex BLAH in ### BC) and ex-tribunes (the lex BLAH in ### BC). After the Sullan dictatorship, it was customary that all ex-quaestors be enrolled in the senate, which brought its number to around 600. The small number of senators implied by the limited number of praetors and consuls of the early republic, however, suggests that these laws may merely formalised the expectation that the censors enrol men who had previously held the more junior magistracies.

Sulla brought the number of senators to around 600 by enrolment of equestrians from Italian municipalities, of his political supporters, and of all ex-quaestors. Caesar, during his dictatorship, increased the number of senators to almost 900 by appointing supporters.

NEW MEN IN THE ROMAN SENATE, SULLA AND CAESAR

Over the course of the republic various laws were passed to regulate the selection of senators. The ancient sources allege that the power to determine the membership of the Senate initially resided with the consuls, but after the plebiscitum Ovinium came to reside with the censors.

REASONS FOR REMOVAL

NO SHIPS

JURY DUTY

{{main|Princeps senatus}}

Among the senators there was a hierarchy, with members who had previously held high office speaking first and thereby exercising influence of the course of the debate. Junior members were expected to sit in judgement of the opinions given before them, as they were unlikely to be called upon to speak.

HOW RANK WAS FURTHER ESTABLISHED; CONSULAR DISCRETION?

The first senator to speak, who was also listed first on the official roll of senators, was called the princeps senatus.

ROLE OF PRINCEPS SENATUS; SOME FAMOUS ONES; POSSIBLE ABEYANCE UNDER SULLA

{{reflist|20em}}

{{refbegin|30em}}

• {{cite book |last=Broughton |first=Thomas Robert Shannon |year=1952 |title=The magistrates of the Roman republic |location=New York |publisher=American Philological Association |author-link=Thomas Robert Shannon Broughton |volume=2}}
• {{Cite book |last=Cornell |first=Tim |title=The beginnings of Rome |date=1995 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-415-01596-0 |location=London |oclc=31515793 }}
• {{cite book |last=Coudry |first=Marianne |chapter=The Senate |date=2022 |title=A companion to the political culture of the Roman republic |pages=206–219 |publisher=Wiley |doi=10.1002/9781119673675.ch15 |isbn=978-1-119-67367-5}}
• {{cite book |last=Flower |first=Harriet I |title=Roman republics |date=2010 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-15258-5 }}
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• {{cite book |last=Millar |first=Fergus |title=The crowd in Rome in the late republic |url={{google books |id=YVBNzYQy5vYC |plainurl=y }} |year=1998 |publisher=University of Michigan Press |isbn=0-472-10892-1 }}
• {{Cite book |last=Morstein-Marx |first=Robert |title=Julius Caesar and the Roman people |date=2021 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-83784-2 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/julius-caesar-and-the-roman-people/C8F2794563855533F26261F3DE54C91C }}
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• {{cite book |last=Lintott |first=Andrew |title=Constitution of the Roman republic |year=1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-926108-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/constitutionofro0000lint_r1i1 }}
• {{Cite book |last=Ryan |first=Francis X |title=Rank and participation in the republican senate |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=CkAvbQD7E-kC}} |date=1998 |publisher=Franz Steiner |isbn=978-3-515-07093-5 |location=Stuttgart |language=en |oclc=ocm41374075}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Pina Polo |first1=Francisco |last2=Díaz Fernández |first2=Alejandro |title=The quaestorship in the Roman republic |date=2019-09-23 |publisher=De Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-066641-0 |doi=10.1515/9783110666410 |s2cid=203212723 |ref={{harvid|Pina|Díaz|2019}} }}

{{refend}}

{{refbegin|30em}}

• {{cite book |author=Cicero |title=Philippicae |url= http://data.perseus.org/texts/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0474.phi035.perseus-eng1 |translator-last=Yonge |translator-first=C D |via=Perseus Digital Library |ref={{harvid|Cicero, Philippicae}} }}
• {{Cite wikisource |author=Livy |author-link=Livy |title=Ab urbe condita |trans-title=From the founding of the city |translator-last=Roberts |translator-first=Canon |year=1905 |wslink=From the Founding of the City |orig-date=1st century AD |wslanguage=en |ref={{harvid|Livy}} }}

{{refend}}

• {{cite web |last=Devereaux |first=Bret |title=How to Roman republic 101, part IV: the Senate |url=https://acoup.blog/2023/09/22/collections-how-to-roman-republic-part-iv-the-senate/ |website=A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry |date=22 September 2023 }}