Agnes Muriel Clay

“ In the last two centuries of the republic we find thata great change has taken place in the position of the senate. It is now a self-existent, automatically constituted body, independent of the magistrates, a recognized factor in the constitution and the wielder of extensive powers. Its self-existence could only be secured by a transference of the selection of the senate from the magistrate to some other authority, and was actually effected by entrusting the selection to the recently instituted college of censors. ”

“ Ex-curule magistrates were now admitted as a matter of course, together with any other persons who had done conspicuous public service in the lower grades of the magistracy or the higher ranks of the army; and for some time before Sulla’s dictatorship little power of choice can really have rested with the censors. L. Cornelius Sulla, while abolishing the censorship (immediately revived) , also secured an entirely automatic composition for the senate by increasing the number of quaestors, and enacting that all ex-quaestors should pass at once into the senate. ”

“ PUBLICANI, literally men employed " in connexion with the revenue, " (publicum, from populus, people) , or possibly " in the public service," the name given in ancient Rome to a body of men who either hired state property or monopolies for a certain period, during which they could farm such property to their own profit, or bought of the state for a fixed sum the right to farm for a term of years the taxes due to the treasury from the public land in Italy (see Agrarian Laws) or the land held by Roman subjects in the provinces. ”

“ Of the two standing powers which the senate inherited from the monarchy, the interregnum and the patrum auctoritas, the first had become even rarer of exercise than before; for if either consul existed to nominate a successor, interregnum could not be resorted to. ”

“ Sulla’s enactments in 81 B.C., which aimed at restoring its ascendancy, show clearly how much power it had already lost; and his attempts to reinstate it were short-lived (see Rome: History II. “The Republic ”) . The Gracchi and Caesar alike found themselves obliged to override senatorial prerogative in the interests of progressive legislation, and though the senate, owing to its strong hold over the magistracy, succeeded repeatedly in dealing death to its opponents, it never regained the popular confidence ”

“ In very early times the publicani may have been men closely connected with the government. But since wealth was a necessary qualification for the post, and wealth at Rome became more and more confined to the commercial class. ”

“ Seats in the theatre were reserved for senators; and even the sons of senators adopted the lotus claims as early as the reign of Augustus, and probably at an earlier time. Certain disqualifications were attached to senators in republican times, chief of which was their exclusion from trade; and these were increased under the principate. Failure to observe these disqualifications, or any public disgrace or gross misconduct, was punished by removal from the senate by the censors, until that office fell into abeyance after the time of Sulla. ”

“ Moreover, with one exception they agree in asserting that throughout the monarchical period the senate consisted entirely of patricians. There is undoubtedly some connexion between the increase in the numbers of the senate by the admission of new members and the distinction between two classes of patres. The most probable view seems to be that the rise in the number of the senators was due to the gradual incorporation of fresh elements into the patrician community, with a consequent increase of gentes ”

“ In very 'early times the senate entrusted to officials appointed for the purpose the control of the sale of salt (Livy ii. 9) ; and it was a natural development from this that the state, instead of appointing officials to manage its monopolies, should let out those monopolies to individuals. ”

“ By analogy the title is used for the governing bodies of various educational institutions, e.g. in the universities of Cambridge and London, and also in certain American colleges and universities, where it denotes an advisory body composed of representatives of the students as well as members of the faculty. So in the Scottish colleges the governing body is the Senatus Academicus. ”

“ If the judices here mentioned are the centumviri, it is clear that they formed a tribunal which represented the interests of the plebs. This is in accordance with Cicero’s account (de Orat. i. 38. 173) of the sphere of their jurisdiction. He says this was mainly concerned with the property of which account was taken at the census; it was therefore in their power to make or unmake a citizen. They also decided questions concerning debt. ”