63 B.C., Cicero put to the vote the sententia of Cato in place of the similar but weaker resolutions of the consulares;[1] but the consul in this exercise of his discretionary choice was acting well within his rights.
One is sometimes surprised, considering the rigidity of the procedure and the size of the body, at the amount of business that appears to have been transacted at a single meeting of the Senate. But both the rules of procedure and the Roman temperament account for the rapidity of the debate. As regards the former it must be remembered that no motion could be put unless pressed by a magistrate, that there was no distinction between substantive motions and amendments, that alternative proposals, therefore, had not to be submitted in detail to a division, that the carrying of one motion generally swept all sententiae on the same subject aside, that motions for adjournment did not take precedence of other motions, and that the business of the house was not interrupted by this modern device for wasting time. We must also remember that a division in the modern sense of the word was rare, and that it appears seldom to have been necessary to take the numbers of the members who respectively supported or were adverse to a motion.[2] The estimate of the voting was in fact going on during the debate; it was the custom of the senator, often without rising, to express a few words of assent to a former speech,[3] and it was not unusual to leave one's bench and take up a position near the man whose opinion one supported.[4] The sense of the house could thus often be taken before the debate had ended; where it was not obvious the consul urged to a division (discessio);[5] even then it is improbable that recourse
- ↑ See p. 270 n. 2.
- ↑ In a rough estimate of the house (61 B.C.) Cicero mentions 15 on one side of a question, "quite 400" on the other (ad Att. i. 14, 5). On Curio's proposal in 50 B.C. that both Pompeius and Caesar should lay down their commands, 22 dissented, 370 approved (App. B.C. ii. 30). In the latter case there seems to have been no formal division (see p. 268 n. 2); and in both the small numbers may be the result of exact computation, the large either of a guess or of a deduction drawn from an already counted quorum.
- ↑ "Verbo adsentiri " (Sall. Cat. 52); cf. Cic. ad Fam. v. 2, 9 "sedens iis adsensi."
- ↑ "In alienam sententiam pedibus ire" (Gell. iii. 18, 1).
- ↑ The invitation to divide on the sententia was couched in the form " Qui hoc censetis, illuc transite: qui alia omnia, in hanc partem" (Festus p. 261). Hence the colloquial phrase "ire in alia omnia" for negativing a proposal at the Senate (Cic. ad Fam. i. 2, 1).
