SENACULUM MULIERUM
a hall of assembly for women, which Elagabalus
built on the Quirinal in the place where the women had previously
been accustomed to meet to discuss matters of common interest (Hist.
Aug. Elag. 4:
fecit et in colle Quirinali senaculum, id est mulierum
Senatum). This was probably destroyed afterwards, for Aurelian is
said to have wished to restore it or build another (id. Aurel. 49:
senatum
sive senaculum matronis reddi voluerat, ita ut primae illic quae sacerdotia
senatu auctore meruissent; Becker, Top. 589; Mommsen,
Staatsrccht
iii. 914; HJ 443).
In 1914 two female statues were found in the ruins of a building of
the imperial period
1 under the Palazzo del Marchese Bourbon del Monte
in the Via Venti Settembre, 38.80 metres from the angle of the Via
Salaria, which, Pasqui (
NS 1914, 142-146) thinks, belong to this senaculum
(
BC 1914, 211). v. Domaszewski (
SHA 1916, 7. A, 14;
1920, 6. A, 22)
regards the senaculum mulierum as an invention based on the conventus
matronalis (cf. Suet. Galb. 5;
Liv. xxvii. 37. 9).