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The Senate.
The Roman Senate (senatus), as its name indicates, was originally the council of elders" (cf. the Homeric βουλὴ γερόντων), advisers of the king. It had, therefore, strictly speaking, no authority to make laws or to enforce their execution, and its votes were simply consulta, i.e. matters agreed upon as advisable, and its power was auctoritas. When annual magistracies succeeded the regal power, this advisory function continued, but the influence of the Senate increased, and the increase went on until, in the third century B.C., this body came to be the actual (though not formal) governing power in the state, and its consulta became ordinances, by which the Senate directed the administration of the whole state, though it still had no power to pass laws, and was itself subject to the laws. The organization of a new province, for example, was an executive measure, put in force not by a law of the people, but by an ordinance of the Senate; and in this ordinance was embodied the entire authority of Rome over the province, except so far as this was defined by general laws passed by the whole people.
It will thus be seen that the Senate, though originally a "council," had by the time of Cicero absorbed a great part of the legislative as well as the executive power in the state.
1
The Senate could only be called together by some magistrate regularly. possessing the imperium (usually the Consul), or by the tribunes of the people (tribuni plebis) the magistrate who summoned it also presided, and laid before it (referre) the business for which it was convened. He might at this point give his own judgment. He then proceeded to ask (rogare) the Senators individually their opinions (sententiae). The order was to ask in their turns the consulares, praetorii and aedilicii (that is, those who sat in the Senate by virtue of having held these offices respectively). It has been disputed whether the senatores pedarii—i.e. those who had held no curule office — had the jus sententiae, or right to debate. There are, however, numerous instances of their having taken part in discussion. If the annual election had already taken place, — which was usually in July, six months before the new magistrates assumed their offices, — the magistrates elect (designati) were called upon before their several classes. The princeps Senatus (see note, Cat. 3.10) was called upon first of all, when there were no consules designati. The presiding officer, however, had it in his power to vary the order, and honor or slight any Senator by calling upon him extra ordinem. For a deliberative oration, delivered in the Senate, see Catiline 4.
As the Senate was primarily a body of councillors, its business was as a rule laid before it in general terms, not in any special form for action each Senator could, as he chose, give his judgment in full, by argument (sententiam dicere), or by simply expressing his assent to the judgment of another (verbo adsentiri). No Senator had a right to introduce any matter formally by motion, as with us, but it was possible for a Senator, when called on, to give his opinion on any subject not included in the questions referred. The vote was taken by a division (discessio), i.e. the Senators went to one side or the other of the house. When a majority had decided in favor of any sententia, it was written out in proper form by the secretaries (scribae), under the direction of the presiding magistrate, in the presence of some of its principal supporters (adesse scribundo), and promulgated. Cf. the closing sections of the Fourteenth Philippic (pp. 255, 256, below).
