SEN 



a year, or fix months, the g^-eatnefs of the fenate was compen- 

 fated by the (hortnefs of the term. The fenators of Rome 

 indulged their avarice and ambition ; their juftice was per- 

 verted by the interelt of their family and faftion ; and as they 

 puniftied only their enemies, they were obeyed only by their 

 adherents. In this itate of anarchy, mod of the Italian 

 republici chofe, in fome foreign but friendly city, an im- 

 partial magiihate of noble birth and unblemifhed charafter, 

 a foldier and a Ilatefman, recommended by the voice of fame 

 and his country, to whom they delegated for a time the fu- 

 preme adminillration of peace and war. See Gibbon's Hilt, 

 of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 



Senate of four hundred, an ancient fenate of Athens, 

 when the city was divided into four tribes, each of which 

 chofe a hundred men. This lafted till Solon inltituted the 

 fenate of five hundred, after the city was divided into five 

 tribes. 



Senate of Venice. See Pregadi. 



SENATOR, a member of a fenate. 



There were two orders, or degrees, among the Roman 

 nobility : that of X^e fenators, and that of the kmghts ; after 

 thefe two, came the people. The firft hundred fenators were 

 appointed by Romulus, and called palres, fathers. Upon 

 the union with the Sabines, RomuIu<!, or as others fay, 

 Tullus, add':>d a fecond hundred, called patres majorum gen- 

 tium : this diftinguifhed them from a third hundred, added by 

 the elder Tarquin, and called patres minorum gentium, fathers 

 of the lover rank. 



In ancient Rome, the number of fenators is commonly fup- 

 pofed to have been limited to three hundred, from the time 

 of the kings to that of the Gracchi. But this muft not be 

 taken too ftridly. The fenate generally had that number, 

 or thereabout, and upon any remarkable deficiency, was 

 filled up again to that complement by an extraordinary crea- 

 tion. But as the number of the public magiftratcs increafed 

 with the increafe of their conquells and dominions, fo the 

 number of the fenate, which was fupplied of courfc by thofe 

 magiftrates, mull be liable alfoto fome variation. To what 

 number Sylla increafed them is not abfolutcly certain ; but 

 in Cicero's time they were not lefs than four hundred and 

 fifteen, as appears by his letter to Atticus, lib. i. ep. 14. 



In the time of Gracchus they were fix hundred ; during 

 the civil wars they were reduced to three hundred. .Julius 

 Csefar augmented that number to nine hundred ; the trium- 

 virs toabove a thoufand : and Auguftus reduced them to 

 fix hundred, according to Dion Cafiius ; and to three hun- 

 dred, according to Suetonius. For the choice of fenators 

 belonged at firltto the kings, then to the confuls, then to 

 the ccniors, who in their cenfus or furvey every fifth year, 

 appointed new fenators in lieu of thofe dead or degraded ; 

 but at length it fell to the emperors. See Senate. 



Though, for a long time, none were raifed to the dignity 

 of ienators, but thofe moft confpicuous for their prudence, 

 &c. yet fome regard was afterwards had to their eilate, left 

 their dignity fhould become debafed by poverty. To hold 

 the fenatorial dignity, a yearly revenue of eight hundred 

 thoufand feilerces was required, which amounts to between 

 fix and feven thoufand pounds of our money. Half as much 

 was required for the qualification of the kniehts. The fena- 

 tors who funk below tliis revenue, were difcarded, and ex- 

 punged out of the hll by the ccnfor ; and this was increafed 

 by Auguftus to twelve hundred thoufand. 



This quahfication muil not be taken, as it is by fome, for 

 an annual income, but th^ whole eitate of a fenator, real 

 and perfonal, as ellimated by the furvey and valuation of the 

 cenfors. 



This proportion of wealth may feem perhaps too low, 



SEN 



and unequal to the high rank and dignity of a Roman fena- 

 tor, but it mult be confidered only as the lowell to which 

 they could be reduced ; for whenever they funk below it, 

 they forfeited their feats in the fenate. 



In ancient Rome, a certain age was required for a fenator, 

 as is often intimated by the old writers, though none of them 

 have exprefsly fignified what it was. The legal age for 

 entering into the military fervice was fettled, by Servius 

 Tullius, at feventeen years ; and they were obliged, as Fo- 

 lybius tells us, to ferve ten years in the wars, before they 

 could pretend to any civil magiltracy. This fixes the pro- 

 per age of fuing for the quxllorfhip, or the firll Hep of 

 honour, to the twenty-eighth year ; and as this office gave 

 an admiffion into the fenate, fo the generality of the learned 

 feem to have given the fame date to the fenatorian age. Some 

 writers, indeed, on the authority of Dion Cafiius, have 

 imagined it to be twenty-five years, not reflefting that Dion 

 mentions it there as a regulation only propofed to Auguftus 

 by his favourite Mscenas. Dr. Middleton takes the quaef- 

 torian age, which was the fame with the fenatorian, to have 

 been thirty years complete. 



The laws concerning the age of magiftrates were not very 

 ancient : and were made to check the forward ambition of 

 the nobles, and to put all the citizens upon a level hi the 

 purfuit of honours. And Livy tells us, that L. Villius, a 

 tribune of the people, was the firft who introduced them, 

 A.U. 573, and acquired by it the furname of Annalis. 

 Middlet. of Rom. Sen. p. 99. 



The fenator;; were ordniarily chofen from among the 

 knights, or from among fuch as had borne the principal 

 of&ces. At firft the magiftrates were taken wholly from 

 among the fenators ; whence Tacitus calls the fenate the 

 feminary of all dignities : but after the people had been ad- 

 mitted to magiftratures, fenators were taken from among 

 fuch as had difcharged thofe offices, .though before ple- 

 beians. 



There was fome law fubfifting from the earlieft times, con- 

 cerning the extradtion and defcent of fenators, enjoining 

 that it fliould always be ingenuous ; and a; tlieir morals were 

 to be clear from all vice, fo their birth likewife from any 

 ftain of bafe blood. In confequence of which, when Ap- 

 pius Claudius, in his cenfordiip, attempted to introduce the 

 grandfons of freed (laves into the fenate, they were all im- 

 mediately turned out again. 



Thefe are fome of the laws by which the cenfors were 

 obliged to aft, in the enrolment of the new, or the omif- 

 fion of old fenators ; and when we read of any left out, 

 without any intimation of their crime, it might probably be 

 for the want of one or other of thefe legal, or cultomary 

 qualifications.' 



It was from the fenatorian order alone, that all ambaffa- 

 dors were chofen and fent to foreign ftates ; and when they 

 had occafion to travel abroad, even on their private affairs, 

 they ufually obtained from the fenate the privilege of a free 

 legation, as it was called ; which gave them a right to be 

 treated every where with the honours of an ambaflador, and 

 to be furnifhed on the road with a certain proportion of pro- 

 vifions and ucccfTarics, for themfelves and their attendants ; 

 and as long as they refided in the Roman provinces, the go- 

 vernors uftd to aflign them a number of liftors, or mace- 

 bearers, to march before them in ftate, as before the magif- 

 trates in Rome. And if they had any law-fuit, or caufe of 

 property depending in thofe provinces, they feem to have 

 had aright to require it to be remitted to Rome. 



At home, likewife, they were diftinguidied by peculiar 



honours and privileges ; for at the public ftiows and plays 



they had particular feats fct apart, and appropriated to them 



G g 2 in 



