SENATE. 



of the confular government, the fenate, which, by many 

 condemnations to death, or exile, the laft king had reduced 

 to lefs than half its complement, was filled up to its former 

 number of three hundred ; this fupply, according to every 

 hilU'rian, was made out of the plebeians ; and in all pro- 

 bability, his lordlhip fays, by the fole power of the confuls, 

 fince no author relates otherwife, and all authors agree that 

 the confulate power at firit differed from the regal powers 

 in no particulars but that of being annual, inftead of per- 

 petual, and divided between two perfons, inftead of being 

 velted in a (ingle one. 



Till the time of the cenfors then, lord Hervey tells us, 

 there is not the Iraft reafon to imagine, that the people had 

 any hand in promoting any man to the fenatorial rank. 

 From the time that the people were allowed to choofe the 

 annual magillr^tcs out of their own body, till the time the 

 commonwealth fell into confufion, which ended, as con- 

 fnfion generally does, with a total lofs pf liberty, the only 

 difficulty in accounting for the filling up of the fenate, his 

 lordfhip fays, is to reconcile the right of the annual magif- 

 trates to enter the fenate, with the power of the cenfors. 

 And this, he thinks, may be done by diftinguilhing between 

 a right to 'vote in the fenate, and being afenator, which were 

 two different privileges, and quite diftinft honours. The 

 firft was obtained by virtue of exercifing any public office, 

 from the quicftorfliip to the conlullhip ; and was confe- 

 quently conveyed by the people ; whereas the laft was a dig- 

 nity conferrable only by the cenfors. Feftus fays, that thofe 

 who held any public office in the ftate, and by virtue of that 

 office voted in the fenate, were neverthelefs no fenators till 

 made fo by the cenfors. And Aulus Gellius, in his chapter 

 upon the " Pedarii Senatores," fays the fame thing. 



Thefe two clades were always diftinguilhed even in the 

 tdift that convoked the fenate ; the form of the edift, as 

 may be feen in many writers, being to convene the fenaiors, 

 and all thofe who had a right to "vote in the fenate. 



Nor was the difference, according to Aulus Gellius, be- 

 tween the voters in the fenate, and the confirmed fenators, fo 

 uneflential, as it may at firft appear ; for thofe, who had 

 only a right to vote in the fenate, and were not enrolled 

 fenators, had no right to fpeak there, and could only pafs in 

 filence to one fide or the other, when a divifion was made on 

 the point in debate. Whereas an enrolled fenator had a 

 right, when he gave his vote, to fpeak as long as he pleafed, 

 and on what he thought fit ; a privilege, which amounted to 

 a power of flopping all proceedings for that day, and was 

 often fo ufed. 



From the ftory of Fabius Maximus and CrafTus, related 

 by Valerius Maximus, book ii. chap. 2. there appears to 

 have been another very eflential difference between a fenator, 

 and a voter in the fenate ; for by that ftory one muft imagine 

 that thofe who were enrolled fenators, had not only the fole 

 right of debating any queftion that came into the fenate, but 

 were like a fecret committee, or cabinet council, who pre- 

 vioufly weighed every propofal that was to be made in a 

 general fenate, and determined whether it fhould be brought 

 in or not. 



The power of taking cognizance of the manners of every 

 Roman citizen, was firft annexed to the cenforlhip, when 

 the office itfelf was disjoined from that of the confulfhip, 

 in the three hundred and eleventh year of Rome, as may be 

 feen in Livy, book iv. chap. 8. But the power of choofing 

 the new ienators was not transferred from the confuls to the 

 cenfors till near a hundred years afterwards, in the tribune- 

 ftiip of Ovinius ; and it was then given to the cenfors by the 

 people, to revenge the breach of the Licinian law (which 

 kw ordained that one of the confuls fliould always be chofea 



out of the plebeians) for both the confuls being that year 

 patricians, and one of the cenfors that year, for th'e firft time, 

 being a plebeian, the tribune Ovinius put the people upon 

 this expedient to do themfelves juftice, and mortify the 

 nobility. 



When the annual niagiflrates were not fufficient to fupply 

 the vacancies in the fenate, the cenfors chofe whom they 

 pleafed. And that the annual magiftrates were fcldora 

 enough to fupply the vacancies, may eafily be concluded, 

 when one confiders how few they were, and how many va- 

 cancies muft be made in fo large a body as three hundred 

 men, by natural deaths, the change of perpetual war, and 

 the purgations made by the reforming authority of tiie 

 cenfors. 



The filling up of the fenate then from the Olivian tribune- 

 (hip till the time of the Gracchi, lord Hervey thinks, de^ 

 pended entirely on the cenfors ; for though he allows that 

 the annual magiftrates, at the expiration of their office, had 

 a fort of claim and pretenfion to be put on the roll of fe- 

 nators, by the cenfors ; yet as the cenfors, under the pre- 

 tence of reformation, had an uncontroulable power to re- 

 move fenators already enrolled, fo on the fame pretence they 

 could, if they pleafed, refufe to enrol, and even without 

 giving any reafon ; fince their manner both of expelling or 

 admitting fenators was merely by omitting or inferting a 

 name in the ceremony of calling over the roll. 



Though the cenforftiip, therefore, at its original inftitu- 

 tion by Servius Tullius, was nothing more than the office 

 of numbering the people, and taking the valuation of their 

 eftates, and an office annexed firft to the royal authority, 

 and afterwards to the confular power ; yet when it was 

 detached from the confular power, and erefted into a 

 feparate office, with the power of filling up the fenate 

 annexed ; from that time, as the cognizance of the manners 

 of every citizen of Rome was alfo in their department, his 

 lordfhip looks upon the cenfors to have been full as abfolute 

 in the city and the civil government, with regard to all pro- 

 motions and degradations, from the fenate down to the 

 loweft tribe, curia, or century, as the confuls were in the 

 camp and the military government. 



Ever after the time of the Gracchi, the ftate was either 

 in fuch confufion, or fuch abfolute flavery, that his lord- 

 fliip thinks there was no regular method at all obferved in 

 filling up the fenate, or any juitice in purging it. Who- 

 ever had the fovereign power in his hand, under what title 

 foever he feized or poffeffed it, modelled the fenate by the 

 introduftion of new members, or the expulfion of old ones, 

 juft as he thought fit. 



Dr. Middleton politely acknowledges, that the hypo- 

 thefis of lord Hervey has the advantage of his own, and 

 will be thought the more folid or plaufible by the gene- 

 rality of readers. See Letters between Lord Hervey and 

 Dr. Middleton, concerning the Roman Senate ; pubhflied 

 by Dr. Knowles, quarto, 1 778. 



The magiftrates who had the power of afTembling the 

 fenate were the diftator, the conluls, the prastors, the 

 tribunes of the commons, and the interrex. Yet upon 

 extraordinary occafions the fame privilege was allowed to 

 the tribuni militum, invefted vi'ith confular power, and to 

 the decemviri, created for regulating the laws ; and to 

 other magiftrates chofen upon feme unufual occafion. 



In the early ages of the republic, when the precinfts of 

 the city were fmall, the fenators were perfonally fummoned 

 by an apparitor ; and fometimcs by a public crier, when 

 their affairs required immediate difpatch ; but the ufual 

 way of calling them, in later days, was by an edift ap- 

 pointing the time and place, and publifhed feveral days 



before, 



