Historiae Romanorum

The Senate

The Senate began as an advisory council to the king.  They were often referred to not as senatores, but as patres, which means 'fathers' in Latin.  From this, their social class receives its name, the patricians.

Although they were established by the first king of Rome, Romulus, they also seem to have a hand in his death.  Under the last king of Rome, the cruel Tarquinius Superbus, their numbers dropped sharply.

With the overthrow of Tarquinius Superbus and the monarchy in 509 BC, the Senate rapidly gained in power.  Brutus, one of the first two consuls of Rome, increased its numbers to 300.  Later, the Senate was increased by Sulla to 600, by Julius Caesar to 900, and then by Augustus back to 600.

The primary duty of the Senate was ostensibly as an advisory committee.  The laws which they proposed had to be ratified by the assemblies (comitiae).  Presumably, the Plebeians could then prevent any law from being ratified.  In reality, since only the wealthy (of whom the Senate was composed, voted first, this was a non-issue.  Once a law was passed, the magistrates of Rome would then enforce the law.

In the Republic, the Senate owed much of its power to its continuity.  Once admitted, senators served for life, unless removed for moral misconduct by a censor.  Furthermore, with only a handful of exceptions its members were all optimates, men from the most important families of Rome, who typically had ties to one another and common interests.  Since its members were all former magistrates, they worked well with the elected officials.  The consuls carried out their orders, instructed the lesser magistrates, and  they assigned and regulated the propraetors and proconsuls, who governed the provinces.

Source(s):

1. Livy.  Ab Urbe Condita.

2. Oxford Concise Companion to Classical Literature.  ed.  Howatson and Chilvers.  Oxford.  New York, 1993.

This page was last updated on July 21, 2004.