Senatus consultum

“ Art. 14. The ministers, the members of the senate, of the legislative body, and of the council of state, the officers of the land and sea forces, the magistrates and public functionaries, take the following oath: I swear obedience to the constitution and fidelity to the president.
Art. 15. A senatus-consultum fixes the sum allowed annually to the president of the republic during the whole continuance of his functions.
Art. 16. If the president of the republic dies before the expiration of his term of office, the senate is to convoke the nation, in order to proceed to a fresh election. ”

“ A senatus-consultum regulates the manner of the education of the French princes. They are members of the Senate and of the Council of State when they have reached their eighteenth year. They cannot marry without the authorisation of the Emperor. ”

“ The majority of votes always decided a question. The majority was ascertained either by numeratio or discessio; that is, the president either counted the votes, or the members who voted on the same side separated from those who voted otherwise. The latter mode seems to have been the usual one. What the senate determined was called senatus consultum, because the consul, who introduced the business, was said senatum consulere. In the enacting part of a lex the populus were said jubere, and in a plebiscitum scire ”

“ These instances may be explained either as acclamations in contio or as exceptional votes in the comitia centuriata, or with more probability, owing to the character of our sources for those early times, as anticipations of later usage. The decisive fact in the problem is that as late as 427 a controversy arose as to whether war could be declared by order of the people only, or whether a senatus consultum was sufficient. It was settled in favor of the people by the threats of the plebeian tribunes to impede the levy. ”

“ The ascendancy of the senate is too obvious and familiar a fact to need much illustration here. It was but rarely that the assembly was called upon to decide questions of policy, and then the proposal was usually made by the magistrate in obedience to the express directions of the senate. [204] In the enormous majority of cases the matter Ascendancy of
the senate.was settled by a senatus consultum, without any reference to the people at all. The assembly decides for war or peace, [205] but the conduct of the war and the conditions of peace are matters left to the senate (q.v.) ”

“ It is evident, too, that in popular theory no laws could prevent the citizens from having the magistrates whom they chose to elect. Again in 135 a plebiscite, authorized by a senatus consultum, granted more speedily on this occasion though doubtless with as great regret, exempted him from the law which absolutely forbade reëlection to the consulship. [2233] It was equally ominous that in the preceding year the proconsulship of M. Aemilius Lepidus was abrogated, probably by an act of the comitia. ”

“ By long prescription the Senate had the right of deciding when a provincial governor should be " succeeded." But then Caesar's term of provincial government had been fixed by a lex, which was superior to a Senatus-consultum ; and he might also argue that if it was unconstitutional for a man to be elected consul while holding a province, the Senate had violated the constitution in allowing Pompey to be consul in B.C. 52.↑ The Senate did not insist on the professio, from which Cæsar had been exempted by name in Pompey's law. ”

“ The increasing wealth and luxury of the age naturally gave rise to sumptuary legislation; and the nobility could allow the comitia to revel in this field, devoid as it was of political significance. The first act, however, was to undo the Oppian law of 215 [2193] through the plebiscite of M. Valerius, 195, enacted probably without a senatus consultum. ”

“ There is considerable uncertainty as to the exact nature of iudicium tacitum, here rendered "a trial with closed doors," on the analogy of the senatus consultum tacitum described by Capitolinus, in Gordian. ch. xii. It is not, I think, mentioned elsewhere (iudiciis tacitis of 2 Off. § 24, is a general expression for "anonymous expressions of opinion") , and the passage in Plutarch (Cato min. 44) introduces a new difficulty, for it indicates a court in which candidates after election are to purge themselves. Again, quæ erant omnibus sortita is very difficult. ”

“ In the case of laws, the correct time for interposing the veto seems to have been the moment when the introductory acts of the magistrate were over and before the voting had commenced; [778] in elections we find the tribune interceding after the first tribe had voted. [779]
(iii.) The intercession against a decree of the Senate (senatus consultum) was in theory a veto of the magistrate’s decree on which he had taken advice. It resided originally with the par majorve potestas. ”

“ In the whole course of Roman history to 332 there is no record of a grant of citizenship by popular vote. [1844] As the Acerrani were left out of account by the senatus consultum above mentioned, L. Papirius in 332 through the first recorded pretorian law granted them the civitas sine suffragio. [1845] In opinion of Lange, [1846] based upon a statement of Velleius, [1847] the censors of the year, Q. Publilius Philo and Sp. Postumius, while enrolling the new citizens, probably obtained a senatus consultum requesting the praetor to bring this subject before the tribes. ”

“ Accepted by the tribes, the law proved a most effective means of maintaining a numerous mob of proletarians ever present and willing to vote for the measures of their political patrons, the leaders of the democracy. A closely related plebiscite permitted the free organization of clubs (collegia) , [2825] which a senatus consultum of 64 had strictly limited, [2826] but which now became an active part of the democratic organization. [2827] His legislation, however, was not utterly devoid of statesmanship. ”

“ Haec illo vivo. Post interitum autem Caesaris, ut primum ex senatus consulto causas consules cognoscere instituerunt, haec, quae supra scripsi, ad eos delata sunt. Probaverunt causam sine ulla dubitatione seque ad te litteras daturos esse dixerunt. Ego autem, mi Plance, etsi non dubitabam, quin et senatus consultum et lex et consulum decretum ac litterae apud te plurimum auctoritatis haberent, teque ipsius Attici causa velle intellexeram, tamen hoc pro coniunctione et benevolentia nostra mihi sumpsi, ut id a te peterem, quod tua singularis humanitas suavissimique mores a te essent impetraturi. ”

“ The presence of so many military men will also, in a political point of view, be useful. It will lessen the pretensions of the constituted authorities, by telling them indirectly, 'It is not to your Senatus Consultum, to your decrees, or to your votes, that I am indebted for my present Sovereignty ”

“ Even by Tiberius’ reign this procedure had become so formal that a rule was framed for its exercise. A definite interval was prescribed within which the Princeps might consider the request for the intercession (Tac. Ann. iii. 51 [A.D. 21] “factum senatus consultum, ne decreta patrum ante diem decimum ad aerarium deferrentur idque vitae spatium damnatis prorogaretur”; cf. Dio Cass. lvii. 20; Suet. Tib. 75) . ”

“ The people wills the re-establishment of the imperial dignity in the person of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, with inheritance in direct legitimate or adoptive descendants, and gives him the right to regulate the order of succession to the throne in the Bonaparte family in the manner described in the senatus-consultum of the 7th of November 1852. ”

“ Nunc venio ad eam epistulam, quam accepi a Tullio. De Marcello fecisti diligenter. Igitur, senatus consultum si erit factum, scribes ad me; si minus, rem tamen conficies; mihi enim attribui oportebit, item Bibulo. Sed non dubito, quin senatus consultum expeditum sit, in quo praesertim sit compendium populi. De Torquato probe. De Masone et Ligure, cum venerint. De illo, quod Chaerippus (quoniam hic quoque πρόσνευσιν sustulisti) , o provincia! etiamne hic mihi curandus est? curandus autem hactenus, ne quid ad senatum “consule!” aut “numera!” Nam de ceteris—sed tamen commode, quod cum Scrofa. ”

“ Liv. iv. 55 “pervincunt, ut senatus consultum fiat de tribunis militum creandis”; iv. 12 “cum ... obtinuisset, ut consulerentur patres, consulum an tribunorum placeret comitia haberi.” Dionysius (xi. 60) represents the people as being consulted too. ”

“ The Council was several times assembled when the Senate was consulted, and the adroit Fouche, whose conscience yielded to the delicacy of his situation, addressed to the First Consul a report worthy of a Mazarin. At the same time the journals were filled with recollections of the Revolution, raked up for the purpose of connecting with past crimes the individuals on whom it was now wished to cast odium. It was decreed that a hundred persons should be banished; and the senate established its character for complaisance by passing a 'Senatus-consulte' conformable to the wishes of the First Consul. ”

“ But what the Senate at that time wished me to manage, I carried out in virtue of my tribunician power, and in this office I five times received at my own request a colleague from the Senate.
7. I was one of the triumvirate for the re-establishment of the constitution for ten consecutive years. I have been princeps senatus up to the day on which I write this for forty years. I am Pontifex Maximus, Augur, one of the fifteen commissioners for religion, one of the seven for sacred feasts, an Arval brother, a sodalis Titius, a fetial. ”

“ The senate, accordingly, as is usual in any perilous emergency, decreed that THE CONSULS SHOULD MAKE IT THEIR CARE THAT THE COMMONWEALTH SHOULD RECEIVE NO INJURY. This is the greatest power which, according to the practice at Rome, is granted by the senate to the magistrate, and which authorizes him to raise troops; to make war; to assume unlimited control over the allies and the citizens; to take the chief command and jurisdiction at home and in the field, rights which, without an order of the people, the consul is not permitted to exercise. ”

“ To understand the facilities for information and the freedom [268] of debate possessed by the Senate, we must have a clear view of the functions of its presidents and of the position of the ordinary magistrates in that assembly. The right of summons and the right of laying business before the body were inseparable; both were possessed by three orders of magistrates—consuls, praetors, and tribunes. But law, in the shape of the power given by the major potestas, made it impossible for the praetor to exercise his right of summons in defiance of the consul ”

“ Praefecture of the City.
'You, to whose care Rome is committed, are exalted by that charge to a position of the highest dignity. The Senate also is presided over by you; and the Senators, who wield full power in that assembly, tremble when they have to plead their own cause at your tribunal. But this is because they, who are the makers of laws, are subject to the laws; and so are we too, though not to a Judge.
'Behave in a manner worthy of your high office. Treat the Consulars with deference. Put away every base thought when you cross the threshold of every virtue. ”

“ The inferior magistrates, whose office it was to superintend affairs of local interest, were elected by the Comitia Tributa. All the magistrates, however great their power, could, at the expiration of their office, be punished for transcending their trust. No person was above the authority of the laws. No one class could subvert the liberties and prerogatives of another. The Senate had the most power, but it could not ride over the Constitution. The consuls were not the creatures of the Senate ”

“ Even in Rome itself, the judices to whom the praetor referred important cases, both public and private, were taken from among the senators, and in extraordinary cases the senate appointed especial commissions to investigate them; but such a commission, if the case in question was a capital offence committed by a citizen, required the sanction of the people. When the republic was in danger, the senate might confer unlimited power upon the magistrates by the formula, Videant consules, ne quid respublica detrimenti capiat, which was equivalent to a declaration of martial law within the city. ”

“ It is a remarkable fact that although a Senate, by its very derivation, means an assembly of old men, and although in the Senate of Rome, which was the greatest of all, the members sat for life, there was a special law providing that no Senator, after sixty, should be summoned to attend his duty. ”

“ In fact, the people was then not only Sovereign, but also magistrate and judge; the senate was only a subordinate tribunal, to temper and concentrate the government, and the consuls themselves, though they were patricians, first magistrates, and absolute generals in war, were in Rome itself no more than presidents of the people. ”

“ In the secular criminal jurisdiction of the king such a council would doubtless have been taken from the Senate. In the religious jurisdiction, which we have considered, the pontiffs would have been the advising board.
Senators also must have been chiefly chosen as delegates of the king, except, perhaps, those appointed for subordinate command in war; [245] there military fitness would be chiefly looked to. ”