- expressed in the formula of summons "qui patres, qui conscripti
(estis)"—was finally merged in the general appellation of "conscript fathers."[1] The expression may have originated with the abandonment or modification of some original principle of selection; but, if conscripti be taken to apply wholly to Plebeians, some date later than the commencement of the Republic must be accepted for the origin of the term.[2]
The history, indeed, of the next hundred and fifty years shows that the Senate is the stronghold of patrician prejudice. The power from which the Plebeians try to shake themselves free, is the patrum auctoritas, and the magistracy must soon have yielded to the demands of the new burgesses, had it not been backed up by a patrician council. Yet during the early Republic the Senate was a power distinctly secondary to the magistrates. Its two undoubted prerogatives were the interregnum and the patrum auctoritas. The first was exercised, perhaps, more occasionally even than it had been under the monarchy, for it could not be resorted to if one of the two consuls existed to nominate a successor. The second power, on the other hand, must have become far more formal than it had been in the time of the monarchy. Then it had been little more than the claim of the council to be consulted on important business;[3] now it was put forward as an integral part of the procedure of the state; it was framed after the voting in the assembly had taken place, and no law or election could be valid which had not, after it had passed the people, received this formal consent of the patres. We cannot trace the widening of the other powers of the Senate; but we must assume that it took up a more independent position in face of the consuls than it had done in that of the king. Perhaps the establishment of a treasury and of financial quaestors, who may have been selected from the council, led to its first connexion with finance. The new importance that foreign affairs assumed, in the constant wars in which Rome was engaged with the nations of Italy, must certainly have strengthened its control of this department.
- ↑ Willems (Le Sénat ii. 39 ff.) makes patres conscripti simply equivalent to "assembled fathers."
- ↑ The first clear instance of a plebeian senator dates from the year 401. Liv. v. 12. P. Licinius Calvus, created military tribune with consular power, was "vir nullis ante honoribus usus, vetus tantum senator et aetate jam gravis." Cf. Liv. iv. 15. Of Sp. Maelius (439 B.C.) it is asked "quem senatorem concoquere civitas vix posset, regem ferret."
- ↑ p. 60.
