Roman senator
As a Roman senator you would sit at the very top of the world’s greatest empire – rich, admired and, under the wrong emperor, one accusation away from ruin.
Getting into the club
The Senate began as a council of elders advising Rome’s kings, and under the Republic it became the real centre of power. Membership was for life and normally followed election to a magistracy, starting with the quaestorship. Numbers grew from about 300 to 600 under Sulla and around 900 under Julius Caesar, before Augustus cut it back to roughly 600.
Augustus also set a property requirement of around one million sesterces. Senators were expected to draw their wealth from land; a law of 218 BCE barred them from owning large seagoing cargo ships, and trade was considered beneath them – though many invested through intermediaries.
A senator’s working day
You would dress the part: a tunic with a broad purple stripe, the latus clavus, under a white toga, and special red or dark shoes. Mornings began with the salutatio, as clients crowded your hall to greet you and ask favours. The Senate met in the Curia on the Forum or in temples, from dawn and never after sunset.
Formally the Senate only advised; its decrees were senatus consulta. In practice, during the Republic it controlled finance, foreign policy and provincial commands. Debates followed strict order of rank, and long speeches could be used to filibuster until nightfall.
Power with a price
Under the emperors the Senate kept its prestige, governed many provinces and served as a court, but real power lay with the princeps. Senators were the class most exposed to treason trials, and some emperors, such as Tiberius in his later years and Domitian, had many executed or forced to suicide. The most famous senatorial act of all was violent: on the Ides of March 44 BCE a group of senators stabbed Julius Caesar during a meeting in the Curia of Pompey.
