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The history of the senate needs to be laid out into sections:
==Early Republic==
==Late Republic==
==Early Empire==
==Middle Empire==
==Late Empire==
==Byzantine== (?)
I can't do it justice -- my knowledge is rusty and I'm away from my Roman Senate primary material. But the point is the Senate went from an iron grip on the Republic, to an old boy's club, to a rubber stamp, to an irrelevant body of old men in Rome, to an even less relevant body of old men in Constantinople.
When was the Roman Senate revived in the Middle Ages? Wetman 01:37, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Colas de Rienzi. I know there was some kind of symbolic Roman Senate in the 1300s. I better check... Wetman 04:14, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Here's this, from http://www.factmonster.com/:
This needs looking into... Wetman 04:26, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
This article needs breaking up into subsections, at the moment it's one long chunk of prose and it's badly presented.
Are modern scholars sure that the purple stripe was on the right shoulder and not down the front of the tunic? I thought there was debate over that. Certainly the popular conception is down the front of the tunic.Binabik80 05:44, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
In what way were the pedarii "like parliamentary backbenchers"? It's true that neither pedarii nor backbenchers are currently out of magisterial/ministerial office, but the key fact about pedarii is that they had never held office. And in context, the article seems to be implying that pedarii are similar to backbenchers because they had no speaking rights, which is a bizarre claim to make about backbenchers. Furthermore, the primary purpose of a backbencher is to vote the way his party wants him to vote, while of course the pedarius, like everyone else in the political party-less Roman Senate, voted his conscience.
If no one responds in two days I'll remove the reference.Binabik80 05:50, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I think I would have to disagree that they were non-office holding Senators. From my understanding, the Senate consisted of ONLY former and current office holding magistrates, at elast until the times of Sulla and his heirs (when appointments became common). Anyway, I have transcribed this entry from the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law:
Senatores Pedarii. The term is not quite clear; its origin was obscure to ancient writers, as related by Gellius (Noct. Att. 3.18). Senatores Pedarii were either senators who had held a lower, non-curule magistracy or ex-magistrates who had not yet been enrolled into the list of senators by the censors. The term pedarii was perhaps connected somehow with the senate's way of voting by a division of the voters (pedibus in sententiam ire, see DISCESSIO). The senatores pedarii could participate only in this form of voting and were excluded from taking part in discussion. - O'Brien-Moore, RE Suppl. 6, 680; M. A. De Dominicis, Il ius sententiae senato rom., 1932.
So, as we can see, one way or another, they were former magistrates. But, as today, there were lesser civil service types in Rome. These were the vigintisexviri and such. Managers of sewage, street-sweeping, etc etc. But nevertheless magistrates. Of course, I think these were not what brought men into the Senate, but were considered stepping-stones. But surely there were enough quaestors and quaestores-elect to create a good deal of pedarii. After all, due to the nature of the republican beast, only so many would ever reach higher office. There were simply not enough offices to go around.
Of course, what this article does not mention is the possibility that these pedarii were in fact these lesser magistrates who were not even quaestorial. And thus were relegated to standing on the sides, so to speak.Cjcaesar
Can anyone tell me the source for the last known act(s) of the Roman Senate? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cjcaesar (talk • contribs) 19:58, 26 January 2006 (UTC).
How did one become a senator? By appointment? (By whom?) By election? (By which assembly?) What were the requirements for membership? Age? Wealth? Class? Presumably one had at least to be a Roman citizen (at least until the appointments made in the time of Julius Caesar). None of this seems to be mentioned under "Membership".
Under the Republic it was the first and most important duty of the censors to choose the senators.
This was called the lectio senatus, when the whole membership was listed in a strict order of seniority according to office-holding seniority and social status (patricians outranking plebeians of the same ex officio seniority). This was the order in which the presiding magistrates who summoned a meeting of the Senate were required to ask for opinions on every matter. The first man on the list was called princeps senatus (= First Lord of the Senate).
Sulla appears to have done away with the lectio and ordained the quaestorship as the qualification for automatic entry into the Senate. But the evidence is controversial. He certainly increased the number of annual quaestors to 20, and it is also certain that the censorship itself lapsed for a decade after Sulla's dictatorship (most of its functions being taken over by the consuls of 80 and 75 BC), and that when it resumed (70-69 BC) the lectio no longer determined the speaking order; a new custom had arisen (probably first established by Sulla in 81 or 80) according to which the senior consul chose the order of the consulars for the year.
--Appietas 06:40, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
According to the section Membership, "A Senator's membership was for his lifetime" But since the most Republican offices have only one-year term, how can an office-holder remains senator after he left the office ?
--Siyac 08:56, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Magistrate and senator were different offices. As I understand it, the Senate was originally made up of the heads of the families whose wealth put them into the senatorial class of the the census. It wasn't exactly for life - a senator could be struck off the roll by the censors for falling below the property qualification, or for some kind of moral disgrace. Cato the Elder is supposed to have removed a senator on the grounds that he kissed his wife in public. As time went on new rules were introduced linking a seat in the senate with the holding of magistracies - I think under Sulla anyone who had reached the rank of praetor became a senator for life - but originally the two offices were separate. --Nicknack009 (talk) 10:15, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
The quorum required for formal enactment of senatorial resolutions (senatus consulta) is very well known to have been 100 or more, when the Senate numbered 300 members. I don't have all the evidence with me but the key and earliest text is the Letter of the consuls (of 186 BC) to the Teurani On Bacchanales (CIL i² 581), where the formula not less than 100 (C[entum]) senators appears three times. I'm not sure that the evidence is so clear after Sulla doubled the size of the Senate to 600, but logically the quorum should have remained the same or else been doubled to 200. --Appietas 06:06, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm certain the building now standing in the Roman Forum dates from the reign of Diocletian, but the article claims that its from the first century. Can anyone clarify this? I know this information is in Amanda Claridge's Archaeological Guide to Rome, but I won't have access to a research library in the near future. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.100.44.11 (talk) 14:33, August 28, 2007 (UTC)
This page appears to have fallen into neglect. I moved this page from Roman Senate to Senate of the Roman Republic. Since the article was mostly about the Senate of the Roman Republic (with almost nothing about the imperial senate), I moved this so that I could integrate it into my series on the Constitution of the Roman Republic. RomanHistorian (talk) 01:59, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
I just wanted to mention my plans for my series on the Roman constitution. There was simply too much information to put on my original page, Constitution of the Roman Republic. There is also a significant amount of information available on the constitutions of the Roman kingdom and empire. Therefore, I am going to give this series somewhat of a matrix structure. Roman Constitution will be the main page of the series. Underneath this page will be Constitution of the Roman Kingdom, Constitution of the Roman Republic and Constitution of the Roman Empire. It surprised me, but apparently there actually was a constitution during the time of the kingdom and then again during the time of the empire.
Underneath the constitution pages, I will have pages on the Senate of the Roman Kingdom, Senate of the Roman Republic, Senate of the Roman Empire, Legislative Assemblies of the Roman Kingdom, Legislative Assemblies of the Roman Republic, Legislative Assemblies of the Roman Empire, Executive Magistrates of the Roman Kingdom, Executive Magistrates of the Roman Republic, and Executive Magistrates of the Roman Empire.
When this is done, I will create a new page called Roman Executive Magistrates, and then populate this page, along with Roman senate and Roman assemblies. All three pages will be condensed versions of their respective sub-pages. Right now, Roman senate and Roman assemblies consist almost exclusively of facts about the republic. Neither page has many citations. They also use a discussion format, and my revisions to these pages will use more of a discussion and analysis format. I am going to be more cautious with my revisions of these pages, because I assume that people will want to restore the original versions for whatever reason.
My hope is to use a discussion and analysis format for the entire series. My overall goal will be to produce a series that doesn't just discuss the facts associated with these offices and institutions. I want the series to tie everything together, and illustrate how everything operated under the overall constitutional system. Right now, the entries on these individual topics (such as roman consul and praetor) simply list facts without providing any deeper analysis or context. It is difficult to truly understand these topics unless you know how they all worked together under the constitutional system.
Also, I am not surprised that there hasn't been more work done on Wikipedia on this topic. It seems as though there are very few books on this subject, and many of those books are quite old. This is unfortunate because this subject is actually quite relevant to modern politics. Many modern governments are designed around a similar constitutional superstructure as was the Roman government. The government strengthened the entire Roman Empire.RomanHistorian (talk) 07:22, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I have redone this entry, and integrated it into my series on the Roman Constitution. Before my change, 95% of this entry was about the senate of the Roman Republic. There was nothing on the senate of the Roman Kingdom, and hardly anything on the senate of the Roman Empire.RomanHistorian (talk) 07:53, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I removed the conscript fathers section. It was highly repetitive and lacking in context. Everything mentioned in it that was accurate is already mentioned elsewhere (under descriptions about Roman senators, since Roman senators and 'conscript fathers' are one in the same).RomanHistorian (talk) 04:07, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Despite the translations of classicists, it did not mean "Conscript Fathers", a nonsense since the "Fathers" part were the original patricians. It was a formula meaning "Fathers" (patricians, and especially the clan chiefs) and "Conscripts" (all the others added). See Pompeius Festus Festus p.304 (ed.Lindsay):
"Who were called the Fathers and who the Conscripts in the Curia? At the time when the Kings had been driven from the City, the consul P.Valerius, owing to a lack of patricians, chose 164 men from the plebs to add to the number of Senators in order to fill up the ranks of the Three Hundred Senators, and he gave two distinct titles.". . Appietas (talk) 22:44, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
I read the following sentence with some surprise. "The dominant religion of the senate in the years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 was Chalcedon Christianity. This was different from both the dominant religion of the Ostrogoths (Arianism) and the official religion of the papacy and Constantinople (Nicene Christianity)."
Could this be expanded and a reference given? If it is correct. The adjective coming from Chalcedon is of course 'Chalcedonian'. Since the Catholic Church has always so far as I know recognized the Council of Chalcedon and most fifth century Emperors did so too, with some obvious exceptions such as Anastasius, the claim is likely to be incorrect. This section of the article generally seems to fall short of professional historical standards. We know the names of quite a lot of late fifth century and early sixth century senators for example. The fourth century section would benefit from more detail on the social and economic base of the senate and could perhaps consider whether senatorial aristocrats were to be found in all provinces or simply Rome and Gaul, where there is abundant evidence. There should also be some consideration of links between the Roman Senate and other late Roman municipal councils across the empire. Despite the unique prominence of the local bishop, the Roman Senate seems to have fared much better than its smaller counterparts in (say) Anatolia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barchard (talk • contribs) 17:03, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps this is just my curiosity. Lictors followed the magistrates who held imperium wherever they went, including the Forum, his house, temples and the baths, but... were lictors allowed to be beside the magistrates inside the meeting place of the Senate? -- Pichote (talk) 14:28, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Gary King (talk) 05:44, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Where do you see page ranges? Besides that? Nergaal (talk) 01:36, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
Gary King (talk) 04:13, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
Gary King (talk) 21:46, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
Gary King (talk) 03:41, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Gary King (talk) 13:57, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
tried to fix some more MOS's... Nergaal (talk) 06:43, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
bumpiest bump! Nergaal (talk) 18:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
This is not a good article and should remain under review, at least until RomanHistorian can be persuaded to stop reversing out the changes I have made en bloc. My additions and reorganization hardly bring it up to GA status either, but at least it's a start, and would be nice if others contributed as well. The problem with self styled RomanHistorian is that he isn't one, and while enthusiastic enough his knowledge includes serious gaps and misinformation. So for example he ridicules the statement that all the senior magistrates had powers of veto, and uses it as a prime justification for reversing my changes. It is just a basic fact of the Roman constitution (i. e. the formal civic powers or potestates belonging to the senior magistracies). Similarly he persists in reinserting his misinformation that the Senate appointed dictators. The Senate had no powers to appoint any magistracies whatsoever, and all dictators had to be nominated by the consuls at some place within the ager Romanus. Again a fundamental fact of the constitution which ought to be known (very quickly) by any introductory level student.
He persists in returning to his bad organization of the article. I've grouped vetoes and obstructionist tactics under the same header. Makes sense no? No, according to RomanHistorian. I had to add the whole section on the secrecy of Senatorial meetings because he had them open to the public at all times, another gross error. Worst of all he cited as a reason for reversing my changes the lack of references. This is not error but an outright lie. All of my changes have been accompanied by a lot more references, and usually primary sources references (sometimes even translated quotations of primary evidence), than his own efforts as any fair minded reader can see who bothers to compare the two versions. In fact the article needs a lot more changes with citations but I have refrained from doing so until I can spare the time to collect the appropriate substantiating refs. Again, changes and additions by others with genuine knowledge of the topic would be appreciated. Unfortunately for all his enthusiasm RomanHistorian does not have this knowledge, nor apparently any acquaintance with primary evidence. He should have the decency to contribute according to his level and not interfere with what he doesn't know.. Appietas (talk) 00:03, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
I had assumed from the title of this page that it was currently under review for GA status. If so that's fine. Having taken time and effort to improve what I consider serious errors and organizational arrangement in the article, I don't like having everything I did reversed for reasons that are false, and serious errors reinstated. There's quite a serious issue in that RomanHistorian has stooped to ridiculing corrections of his errors. I. e. he doesn't know and refuses to check when he is in error even over basics, and for reasons best known to himself assumes that his limited knowledge is spot-on factual. I've not encountered this attitude before and find it bizarre. It certainly condemns the article to an embarrassing level if he is permitted to have editorial control by dint of persistence and enthusiasm. I wish I had the time to keep up, but don't. A good solution would be to get Roman experts on the ancient projects list involved. There seem to be some academics or at least post grad. students there. Appietas (talk) 03:16, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
I am reverting this article back to how it was before the edits by Appietas. It was a Good Article before. If Appietas' changes stand, it will lose that status. Appietas has demonstrated a poor understanding of Wikipedia policies and rules. A "Good Article" is one that satisfies the Good article criteria, not one where everyone necessarily agrees with the facts. I did remove his inaccurate edits, mostly because they were uncited (in addition to being wrong). As for his point about the veto, see below. As for the matter of the dictators, the senate authorized the Consuls to appoint a dictator (and could specify who the Consul was to appoint). Giving Consuls the power to appoint dictators whenever they wished would have been, to say the least, dangerous. Appietas may have more sources, but I have more citations and reliable sources. Given how narrow this topic is, there aren't many good books covering it. I used a couple of recent scholarly books to cite from. Appietas uses many dubious sources, strange websites, and contemporary authors who did not know the difference between historical fact and legend. Appietas needs to understand the difference between truth and fact on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of facts, not "truth". If he thinks I am wrong about something, then change what I wrote and use a substantive source (something Appietas has not yet found apparently). Deleting most of the article because he doesn't like it, adding whatever 'facts' he thinks sounds right, and providing a few dubious sources, is not on par with Wikipedia standards.
My citations are in line with Wikipedia's policy on Verifiability in that
My citations are also in line with Wikipedia's preference for more recent publications, as well as its preference for Secondary sources.
Primary sources (such as Livy or Cicero) are more prone to (Pro-Roman, Pro-aristocratic) bias, and without the advantage of 2,000 years of hindsight and scrutiny of the original works.
Ignoring the fact that Appietas' edits contain numerous factual errors, and ignoring the fact that his edits are very hard to read, lengthy, and thus make it less likely that non-experts would want to (or be able to) read this article, there are some obvious points that make this article less than that of GA status with his edits. First, the grammar is poor and difficult to understand. I see numerous run-on sentences, as well as strange and somewhat confusing terms I have never seen before such as "Caesar monarch" or "all military personnel were considered man-slayers" or "Gang of Three to overturn the Republic" (the 'Triumvirate' was not meant to overturn the republic, even if it did ultimately contribute to it). One example of a run on sentence (not to mention strange wording) comes from the beginning of the article:
This violates the first criteria for GA, that it be well written. Second, and most importantly, there are few citations, which itself violates the second criteria for GA, that it be verifiable. The section on "The Secrecy of Senatorial Meetings", for example, contains what looks like about 7 paragraphs (difficult to tell due to his disordered grouping style) and only 3 citations. All three appear to come from contemporary (Appietas uses the term "primary") sources, which means that even these may be more legendary than historical. If Appietas disagrees with the facts I cited from reliable sources, then he should find reliable sources to contradict them. The fact that he doesn't like the facts I cite is irrelevant. The GA-version of this article contained numerous citations. Almost every paragraph had several citations. As for Appietas' interest in "primary sources", this is a dubious methodology for a Roman history article. It is similar to citing the Iliad for an article regarding Greek history. Many of these "primary sources" were based at least partly on legend (as most of Livy's first 10 books are, for example). The sources I used, such as Lintott, are recent sources, which explain things in line with the modern scholarly consensus, filtering out the legend.
In addition, I see scope issues, where Appietas is mentioning facts that belong on other articles, which itself makes this article unnecessarily long and difficult to read. One example is the paragraph he devotes to Triumphs, which should go in the article on Triumphs, not this article. Another is a mention of an incident between a mother and son in the 4th century (BC??). Another example is his discussion of the patronage system regarding the structure of Roman society. Maybe that has some indirect relationship to the senate, but this series isn't about Roman society, but rather Roman government. This goes to something else. Appietas treats this article almost like his personal blog. Some of what he adds was already on the article, only now with his changes has no citation (or a dubious one). Some of what he adds that does have reliable cites could easily be added to the article as it was before he came in and messed it up. One good example would be the meeting places of the senate, which might go well in the article as it was before, only not in the distracting and messy listing format that he uses.
I see numerous factual errors in Appietas' edits.
It's certainly important to understand how influential the Senate became, and make some attempt to explain why (he doesn't and cannot, I've just begun elements of this explanation), but the argument that the Senate's "authorization" of a Consul to appoint a Dictator equates with a senatorial appointment is entirely bogus, and could be applied to any other aspect of government where the Senate's advice amounted to its de facto control. In all cases it is important to be clear where the actual powers lay, however much influenced by de facto social and political customs, of which the Senate's increasing influence and authority was one of the most important. Again the Senate had no right whatsoever to name the Dictator in advance, and never did. This was the Consul's right and responsibility. He may consult the Senate over this, or not. When both consuls were dead or absent from the ager Romanus and it was decided that there was a need for a Dictator, a constitutional crisis arose. Which was resolved, as always, by reference to the sovereign powers of the voting Assemblies of the (male) population.
In all cases my comments and additions are based on reading the ancient sources in combination with expert modern texts. Despite RH's ignorant statement to the contrary there are many good modern texts covering the topic. His world view is that what he doesn't know doesn't exist, and anyone attempting to correct him is an enemy. I probably should and could add further citations, but in every case I have included many more of these than RH. As it is I see my additions as an ongoing work which can always be improved upon and I'm quite content for others to get involved and do so. But RH doesn't do this. He reverts and removes en bloc, and restores his own worst inaccuracies and mistakes.
RH's objections by anaylsis are embarassing. He fails to grasp that magistrates presided over and directed the meetings of the Senate, and that everything done under their competence, including the passage of senatorial acts and resolutions could be nullified by the intercession of any other magistrate(s) with equal or greater civic powers. I cite the source, he doesn't like it, he removes and cites Lintott contra. Lintott is a great historian so I doubt that he would slip up over this issue. More likely RH has misunderstood Lintott according to his custom. But I guess I can't quote the ipsa verba of the source which would be inadmissible foreign language content by the wiki rules. So are we reduced to accepting any twerp who misquotes modern texts as ultimate arbiter of serious historical fact?
One final point. RH's reply here is too long, and he's repeated the entire tract below. This is perhaps a result of a need for grouped comment because he doesn't ever improve he simply slashes out my edits en bloc. It is also probably a deliberate tactic to prevent clear and easy to follow objection and reply, so that a minimum of members will wish to follow this dispute. Henceforth I'll endeavour to address individual matters in dispute under separate headers on this Talk page, which seems to be the practice elsewhere on wiki..Appietas (talk) 01:21, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
It's certainly important to understand how influential the Senate became, and make some attempt to explain why (he doesn't and cannot, I've just begun elements of this explanation), but the argument that the Senate's "authorization" of a Consul to appoint a Dictator equates with a senatorial appointment is entirely bogus, and could be applied to any other aspect of government where the Senate's advice amounted to its de facto control. In all cases it is important to be clear where the actual powers lay, however much influenced by de facto social and political customs, of which the Senate's increasing influence and authority was one of the most important. Again the Senate had no right whatsoever to name the Dictator in advance, and never did. This was the Consul's right and responsibility. He may consult the Senate over this, or not. When both consuls were dead or absent from the ager Romanus and it was decided that there was a need for a Dictator, a constitutional crisis arose. Which was resolved, as always, by reference to the sovereign powers of the voting Assemblies of the (male) population.
In all cases my comments and additions are based on reading the ancient sources in combination with expert modern texts. Despite RH's ignorant statement to the contrary there are many good modern texts covering the topic. His world view is that what he doesn't know doesn't exist, and anyone attempting to correct him is an enemy. I probably should and could add further citations, but in every case I have included many more of these than RH. As it is I see my additions as an ongoing work which can always be improved upon and I'm quite content for others to get involved and do so. But RH doesn't do this. He reverts and removes en bloc, and restores his own worst inaccuracies and mistakes.
RH's objections by anaylsis are embarassing. He fails to grasp that magistrates presided over and directed the meetings of the Senate, and that everything done under their competence, including the passage of senatorial acts and resolutions could be nullified by the intercession of any other magistrate(s) with equal or greater civic powers. I cite the source, he doesn't like it, he removes and cites Lintott contra. Lintott is a great historian so I doubt that he would slip up over this issue. More likely RH has misunderstood Lintott according to his custom. But I guess I can't quote the ipsa verba of the source which would be inadmissible foreign language content by the wiki rules. So are we reduced to accepting any twerp who misquotes modern texts as ultimate arbiter of serious historical fact?
One final point. RH's reply here is too long, and he's repeated the entire tract below. This is perhaps a result of a need for grouped comment because he doesn't ever improve he simply slashes out my edits en bloc. It is also probably a deliberate tactic to prevent clear and easy to follow objection and reply, so that a minimum of members will wish to follow this dispute. Henceforth I'll endeavour to address individual matters in dispute under separate headers on this Talk page, which seems to be the practice elsewhere on wiki..Appietas (talk) 01:21, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
I think most of this article has been cobbled together by the "Roman Historian" twerp. The discussion of the vetoing of senatorial decrees is ignorant of Roman history and the Republican constitution, which was based fundamentally on an annually changing government of executive officers (magistrates) invested with all civic and military powers in full legal and religiously sanctioned form. The authority of the Senate had a powerful social and political de facto basis, not legal. Its original and continuing role was as the community's supreme advisory council to the annual executive, and all its acta were always couched in language suitable to an advisory body, even when it became the de facto ruling council. It was the presiding magistrates whose powers were legally based (called potestates in the civic area, iura imperii in the military), and these powers of government included the ability to veto any senatorial decree with which they disagreed. This rarely happened because the presiding magistrate summoned and controlled meetings of the senate and directed which proposals should be voted upon in the first place (and when). However it did happen when two or more magistrates of equal rank presided (most commonly the consuls) and one of them disagreed enough with a decree to nullify it. The whole binding force of a senatorial decree passed without veto was based in the de facto situation that the current government (all the senior and most powerful annual magistrates, with all their coercive powers) agreed with it; so it better be obeyed - or else. The bogus claim that consular vetoes were not legally based ought to disqualify the author from writing articles like this one. He's evidently read something about the powers and sacrosanctity of the tribunate plebis in the forum and comitia and decided to introduce them "free form" into the Senate as well on the basis of a limited understanding. The tribunes were not even permitted to enter the senate house until they themselves became magistrates, under the terms of the lex Atinia of c.130 B.C.
Appietas (talk) 23:34, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
The section on the role of the tribunes may be slightly misleading; it implies (unintentionally, I think) that there was a single tribune who was the "chief representative" of the People. I'm pretty sure the editors of this section knew otherwise, but it may not be clear to someone coming to the article with less background on the subject. And because there were multiple tribunes, they could threaten each other or be played off each other. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:38, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
I've recently finished reading Mary Beard's popular 2015 history text SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (which I've lent on, so do not have to hand). Beard also includes the illustration currently used in this article, Cato attacks Catalina, but dismisses it as showing a completely imaginary setting, much grander and more spacious than any of the actual venues the Senate used.
I understand that illustrations of Senate meetings are thin on the ground so a more authentic depiction might not be available, but I suggest it would be a good idea to explain the above briefly in the article text and/or illustration caption.
I actually came to this article to check on the accuracy of a minor point in Robert Harris's trilogy about Cicero, having just finished the third volume, Dictator. Harris makes several mentions of "the Senate building", and its destruction by fire at one point, as if this were a single purpose-dedicated building, but Beard (as I recalled, perhaps wrongly) says that there was no specific Senate building, and meetings were convened in whichever of several temples was most convenient.
The article seems broadly to corroborate the latter under Venue and ethical standards, but text in Senate of the Roman Empire and linked articles such as Curia Hostilia makes it plain that there was always at least one particular building (Curia) that, though originating as a temple (which technically it remained), was primarily intended as the Senate's meeting place (as opposed to being primarily a temple, or being the curia of various other bodies). I suggest that this point should be made more explicit in this article, as it is in . . . Roman Empire and Curia. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.123.26.60 (talk) 13:58, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
If this really is,
1) why is there no treatment of the pedarii?
2) why is there no discussion of the specific clothing that marked the senatorial class as distinct in Roman society beyond two links (one just added) from a photo?
3) why are there "sources" sitting around in the list at the bottom of the page that are entirely unused within the text of the article?
I mean, it's not a bad article but it obviously has blind spots and some things needing cleanup. — LlywelynII 09:55, 29 June 2023 (UTC)