Thus, after this point in time, election to magisterial office resulted in automatic Senate membership.

[9] It is known, for example, that the senator Cato the Younger once filibustered in an attempt to prevent the Senate from granting Julius Caesar a law that would have given land to the veterans of Pompey. About 312 bc the selection of senators was transferred from the consuls to the censors, who normally chose former magistrates.


It also claimed the right of granting occupation and decreeing alienation of public lands.

[15] This publication was posted in the Roman Forum, and then sent by messengers throughout the provinces. De senaat (Latijn: senatus) was een college van 100 tot 900 senatoren die het Romeinse staatshoofd assisteerden tijdens de periode van het Romeinse Rijk. [1] Once debates were underway, they were usually difficult for the presiding magistrate to control. Polybius noted that it was the consuls (the highest-ranking of the regular magistrates) who led the armies and the civil government in Rome, and it was the Roman assemblies which had the ultimate authority over elections, legislation, and criminal trials.

[1] Senate meetings might take place outside of the formal boundary of the city for several reasons.

The legislative powers of the popular elective assemblies became very gradually extinct, and decrees of the Senate came to take the place of legislative bills adopted by the assemblies in ordinary matters although they did not at first acquire full recognition as laws.

With the abolition of the monarchy in Rome in 509 bc, the Senate became the advisory council of the consuls (the two highest magistrates), meeting only at their pleasure and owing its appointment to them; it thus remained a power secondary to the magistrates. The appointment was for life, although the censor could impeach any senator. [9][12], Senators had several ways in which they could influence (or frustrate) a presiding magistrate. Like modern quorum calls, this was usually a delaying tactic. [5] While the standard was high for expelling a member from the Senate, it was easier to deny a citizen the right to join the Senate. At first the provincials came predominantly from Spain and Narbonese Gaul, but later there were more Asians and Africans.

They could not own a ship that was large enough to participate in foreign commerce without legal approval, [1] and they could not leave Italy without permission from the Senate. It continued to administer the treasury but was soon overshadowed by the emperor, who allowed it to supervise the copper coinage alone. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). In 44 BC for example, consul Mark Antony threatened to demolish the house of the former consul Cicero for this very reason.

The censors, who were only occasional officials, were entrusted with the leasing of the public revenues; the Senate could order them to redraft contracts.

As a result of the civil war of 49–45 bc, the number of senators (which Sulla had earlier raised to 500 or 600) was seriously depleted. Various moral failings could result in one not being allowed to join the Senate, including bankruptcy, prostitution, or a prior history of having been a gladiator. It acquired the right to assign duties to the magistrates, to determine the two provinces to be entrusted to the consuls, to prolong a magistrate’s period of office, and to appoint senatorial commissions to help magistrates to organize conquered territory. De Senaat van het West-Romeinse Rijk bleef werken tot 603 na Christus. De tekst is beschikbaar onder de licentie. Polybius noted that it …

However, since the Senate controlled money, administration, and the details of foreign policy, it had the most control over day-to-day life.

But in the early Republic the Senate remained an advising body and assumed no definite executive powers.

[5] Many of these laws were enacted in the last century of the Republic, as public corruption began reaching unprecedented levels. The composition of the Senate thus underwent a considerable change: few of the senators who had opposed Caesar survived; the new senators included many knights and municipal Italians and even a few provincials from Gaul.

Senators could also demand that a motion be divided into smaller motions.

A magistrate who wished to summon the Senate had to issue a compulsory order (a cogere), and senators could be punished if they failed to appear without reasonable cause.

De Oost-Senaat overleefde in Constantinopel totdat deze oude instelling er uiteindelijk ook verdween met de Val van Constantinopel in 1453. Around the year 318 BC, the "Ovinian Plebiscite" (plebiscitum Ovinium) gave this power to another Roman magistrate, the censor, who retained this power until the end of the Roman Republic. [18], Ceccarelli, L., in Bell, S., and Carpino, A., A, (Editors), "Cato, the Younger Biography | Encyclopedia of World Biography Biography", Rome at the End of the Punic Wars: An Analysis of the Roman Government; by Polybius, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Senate_of_the_Roman_Republic&oldid=977862895, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from October 2009, Pages using columns with the default column width, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Gruen, E. S. "The Last Generation of the Roman Republic" (U California Press, 1974), This page was last edited on 11 September 2020, at 12:15.

Ultimately, the plebeian tribune's veto was based in a promise of physical force. Na de val van het West-Romeinse Rijk in 476 functioneerde de senaat in het westen een tijd onder de barbaarse heerschappij, maar zijn invloed was meestal beperkt tot de stad Rome zelf.

In addition, if the motion was a senatus consultum, a capital letter "C" was stamped on the document, to verify that the motion had been approved by the Senate. [15], When it was time to call a vote, the presiding magistrate could bring up whatever proposals (in whatever order) he wished, and every vote was between a proposal and its negative.

If a senatus consultum conflicted with a law (lex) that was passed by a Roman Assembly, the law overrode the senatus consultum, because the senatus consultum had its authority based in precedent, and not in law.

[16] Quorums were required for votes to be held, and it is known that in 67 BC the size of a quorum was set at 200 senators (by the lex Cornelia de privilegiis). Other laws were enacted to outlaw the so-called omnibus bills,[14] which are bills, usually enacted by a single vote, that contain a large volume of often unrelated material. Ultimately, if there was no veto, and the matter was of minor importance, it could be voted on by a voice vote or by a show of hands.

The Senate directed the magistrates, especially the consuls, in their prosecution of military conflicts. Tijdens de dagen van het koninkrijk, was het weinig meer dan een adviesorgaan aan de koning.
Senate, in ancient Rome, the governing and advisory council that proved to be the most permanent element in the Roman constitution. The Senate was the governing and advisory assembly of the aristocracy in the ancient Roman Republic.

The presiding magistrate would then begin a discussion by referring an issue to the senators, who would discuss the issue, one at a time, by order of seniority, with the first to speak, the most senior senator, known as the princeps senatus (leader of the Senate),[1] who was then followed by ex-consuls (consulares), and then the praetors and ex-praetors (praetorii). Originally the chief-magistrates, the consuls, appointed all new senators. Many of these rules and procedures originated in the early years of the Republic, and were upheld over the centuries under the principle of mos maiorum ("customs of the ancestors").

The number of the new senators rose in the 4th century to about 2,000.

On the other hand, the Senate lost all its control of foreign policy; and, though it was occasionally consulted by the emperor, it was entirely subordinate to him in this department. While punishment could include impeachment (expulsion) from the Senate, often a punishment was less severe than outright expulsion.

A great number of them failed to leave their estates to attend meetings, and the Senate often acted—as it had in the early days of the Republic—merely as a town council for Rome, under the chairmanship of the prefect of the city. It was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors.

Ten tijde van de Romeinse Republiek, afgeleid van het Latijnse "res publica" wat iets als zaak van het publiek (volk) betekent, stond de senaat op het hoogtepunt van zijn macht en was hij het enige bestuurlijke en regerende orgaan en was een decreet van de senaat of Senatus consultum (afgekort S C) in de praktijk gelijk aan een wet. In 81 bc Sulla secured an automatic composition for the Senate by increasing the number of quaestors to 20 and enacting that all former quaestors should pass at once into the Senate.

This publication, called the acta diurna, or "daily proceedings", was meant to increase transparency and minimize the potential for abuse. At any point before a motion passed, the proposed motion could be vetoed.

However, the consuls held office only for one year, whereas the Senate was a permanent body; in experience and prestige, its individual members were often superior to the consuls of the year.

A senatus consultum, however, could serve to interpret a law. Toen de zetel van de regering werd overgebracht van Rome naar Constantinopel, werd de senaat gereduceerd tot een gemeentelijke instelling. It became the chief governing body in Rome and tendered advice on home and foreign policy, on legislation, and on financial and religious questions. It often acted as arbitrator in disputes among Italian communities, provincials, or client-states.