they were legally as unfettered as the king had been, and could summon new members or omit to summon those already on the list.[1] So far as law went, the personnel of the Senate might now be changed annually. But custom must have been stronger than law. The body had gained a definiteness in its constitution, based on its representative character and probably on actual life-membership, which could not be easily destroyed, and the consul had a colleague at his side to check any attempt at capricious removal or selection. The short tenure of office must already have made a magistrate unwilling to exercise a power which might be so easily turned against himself in the near future. The discretionary power of the magistrate would have made the choice of Plebeians possible, now that they were possessed of all the essential rights of full citizenship;[2] but it does not appear that this choice could have been often, if ever, exercised. The patrician clans had a close hereditary connexion with the Senate; the interregnum, which was the transmission of auspices by the patres, had long been one of its privileges, and the prejudices of the patrician magistracy would hardly have allowed it to dip into the inferior order for councillors. If there be any truth in the story that, on the abolition of the monarchy, the thinned ranks of the patres were again raised to 300 by the inclusion of persons specially enrolled (adlecti or conscripti),[3] these added members were probably, like their predecessors, patrician. This large increase (placed by some at 164 members) gave rise to a transitory distinction between the older members and the new members, which—*). So adlecti, Festus p. 7 "adlecti dicebantur apud Romanos, qui propter inopiam ex equestri ordine in senatorum sunt numero adsumpti: nam patres dicuntur qui sunt patricii generis, conscripti qui in senatu sunt scriptis adnotati." Plutarch (Qu. Rom. 58, Rom. 13) makes the added members Plebeians. Tacitus (Ann. xi. 25) wrongly identifies these added members with the minores gentes. (Claudius creates Patricians A.D. 48—"paucis jam reliquis familiis, quas Romulus majorum et L. Brutus minorum gentium appellaverant.")]
- ↑ Festus p. 246, cited p. 59.
- ↑ Zonaras (vii. 9) makes Servius Tullius introduce Plebeians into the Senate.
- ↑ Liv. ii. 1 "Deinde, quo plus virium in senatu frequentia etiam ordinis faceret, caedibus regis diminutum patrum numerum primoribus equestris gradus lectis ad trecentorum summam explevit: traditumque inde fertur, ut in senatum vocarentur qui patres quique conscripti essent: conscriptos videlicet in novum senatum appellabant lectos"; Festus p. 254 "'Qui patres, qui conscripti': vocati sunt in curiam, quo tempore regibus urbe expulsis P. Valerius consul propter inopiam patriciorum ex plebe adlegit in numerum senatorum C. et LX. et IIII. ut expleret numerum senatorum trecentorum" (for these numbers cf. Plut. Public. 11 [Greek: tous d' engraphentas hyp' autou legousin hekaton kai hexêkonta tessaras genesthai
