SEN
SEN
It feems probable that a certain number of fenators was re- quired by law, as neceffary to legitimate any aft, and give force to a decree : yet there is no certain number fpecified by any of the old writers, except in one or two particular cafes. Middleton, ibid. p. 164, feq.
The decrees of the fenate were ufually publifhed, and openly read to the people foon after they were pafled ; and an authentic copy of them was always depofited in the pub- lic treafury of the city, or otherwife they were not confider- ed as legal or valid. Cic. Phil. 5. 4. Tacit. Ann. 3. §1. Middleton, ibid. p. 166, feq.
As to the force of thefe decrees, it is difficult to define pre- cifely what it was. It is certain that they were not con- fidered as laws, but feem to have been defigned originally as the ground-work, or preparatory ftep to a law, with a fort of provifional force, till a law of the fame tenor mould be enacted in form by the people ; for in all ages of the republic, no law was ever made, but by the general fuffrage of the people. Middleton, ibid. p. 167, feq. Even under the kings, the collective body of the people was the real fovereign of Rome, and the dernier refort in all cafes. But their power, though fupreme and final, was yet qualified by this check, that they could not regularly enac-t any thing, which had not been previoully confidered and approved of by the fenate m . This indeed continued to be the general way of proceeding in all quiet' and regular times, from the beginning of the republic to the end of it : and the conftant ftyle of the old writers, in their accounts of the public tranfaftions, is, that the fenate voted or de- creed, and the people commanded fuch and fuch an aft H . — [ m Dionyf Hal. I. 7. 38. Edit. Oxon. Middlet. of Rom. Sen. p. 115. n Liv. 37. 35. Middleton, ibid, p. 117-] SENATOR {Cycl.) — In antient Rome, the number of fenators is commonly fuppofed to have been limited to three hundred, from the time of the kings to that of the Gracchi. But this muft not be taken too ftriftly. The fenate generally had that number, or thereabouts, and upon any remarkable deficiency, was filled up again to that complement by an extraordinary creation. But as the number of the public magistrates increafed with the increafe of their conquerfts and dominions, fo the number of the fenate, which was fupplicd of courfe by thofe magiftrates, muft be liable alfo to fome 'Variation. Sylla, when it was particularly exhaufted, added three hundred to it at once from the equeftrian order, which might probably raife the whole number to about five hun- dred ; and in this Urate it feems to have continued, till the fubverfion of their liberty by Jul. Csefar. For Cicero <*, i n an account of a particular debate, in one of his letters to Atticus, mentions : four hundred and fifteen to have been prefent at it, which he calls a full houfe p.— [° Ad Attic. 1. I. 14. p Middlet. of Rom. Sen. p. 93, feq.] In antient Rome, a certain age was required for a fenator,- as is often intimated by the old writers, though none of them have exprefsly fignified what it was. The legal age for en- 1 tring into the military fervice was fettled, by Servius Tul- 1 lius, at feventeen years i; and they were obliged, as Po- lybius r tells us, to ferve ten years in the wars, before they could pretend to any civil magiffracy. This fixes the proper age of fuing for the quasftorfhip, or the firft ftep of honour, to the twenty eighth year; and as this office gave an ad- miifion into the fenate, fo the generality of the learned feem to have given the fame date to the fnatorian age. Some writers indeed, on the authority of Dion Caftius, have imagined it to be twenty five years ; not reflecting that Dion mentions it there as a regulation only, propofed to Au- guftus by his favourite, Maecenas £ . Dr. Middleton takes, the quseftorian age, which was the fame with the fenaiorian, to have been thirty years complete '. — [1 A. Gell 10. 28. r Polyb. de Inftit. rei milit. 1. 6. p. 466. s Vid. Die. 1. 52. p. 477. Lipf. de Magiflrratib. Rom. l Middleton of Rom. Sen. p. 96.] The laws concerning the age of magiftrates were not very antient ; and were made to check the forward ambition of the nobles, and to put all the citizens upon a level in the ■purfuit of honours c . And Livy u tells us, that L. Villius, a tribune of the people, was the firft who introduced them, A. U. 573, and acquired by it the furname of Annalis w . — [ [ Cic.Phil 5. 17. u Lib. 40. 44. w Middlet. of Rom. Sen. p. 99.]
There was another qualification alfo required, as neceffary to a fenator, an eftate proper to fupport his rank, the pro- portion of which was fettled by the law. We may collect from Suetonius, that it was fettled at eight hundred feftertia before the reign of Auguftus x , which are computed to amount to between fix and feven thoufand pounds of our money ; and muft not be taken, as it is by fome, for an an- nual income, but the whole eftate of a fenator, real and perfonal, as eftimated by the furvey and valuation of the cenfors v. — [* Sueton. in Aug. cap. 41. y Middleton, ibid. p. 100.]
This proportion of wealth may feem perhaps too low, and unequal to the high rank and dignity of a Roman fenator, but it muft be confidered only as the loweft to which they could be reduced ; for whenever they funk below it, they forfeited their feats in the fenate. Middlet. ibid. p. 101. Suppl. Voi.. II.
There was fome law alfo fubfifting from the earlieft times, concerning the extraction and defcent of fenators, injoining that it fliould always be ingenuous ; and as their morals were to be clear from all vice, fo their birth likewife from any ftain of bafe blood. In confequence of which, when Appius Claudius, in his cenforfhip, attempted to introduce the grandfons of freed (laves into the fenate, they were all immediately turned out again. Middleton, ibid. p. 104. ' Thefe are fome of the laws by which the cenfors were ob- liged to aft, in the enrollment of the new, or the omiflion of old fenators : and when we read of any left out, with- out any intimation of their crime, it might probably be for the want of one or other of thefe legal, or cuftomary qua- lifications. Middleton, ibid. p. 106.
It was from the fenaiorian order alone, that all ambafladors were chofen and fent to foreign ftates : and when they had occafion to travel abroad, even on their private affairs, they ufually obtained from the fenate the privilege of a free le- gation, as it was called ; which gave them a right to be treated every where with the honours of an ambaffador, and to be furnifhed on the road with a certain proportion of provifions and necefiaries, for themfelves and their atten- dants b : and as long as they refided in the Roman provinces, the governors ufed to affign them a number of liftors, or mace-bearers, to march before them in ftate, as before the magiftrates in Rome c . And if they had any law-fuit, or caufe of property depending in thofe provinces, they feem to have had a right to require it to be remitted to Rome d . — [ b Cic. Epift. Fam. n. 1. It. ad Att. 15. ir. Cc. E F . Fam. 12. 21. Suet, in Tiber. 31. c Cic. Ep. Fam. 12. 21. d Cic. ibid. 13. 26. Middleton, ibid. p. 173, feq.] At home, likewife, they were diftinguifbed by peculiar ho- nours and privileges ; for at the public (hews and plays they had particular feats apart, and appropriated to them, in the moil commodious part of the theatre c : and on all folemn ieftivals, when facrificcs were offered to Jupiter by the ma- giftrates, they had the fole right cf feafting publickly in the capitol, in habits of ceremony, or fuch as were proper to the offices which they had borne in the city f . — [ c Cic. pro Clu. 47. Vid. It. Plutarch, in Klaminin. p. 380. A. f Suet. Aug. 3<j. A. Gell. 12. 8. Dionyf 55. 554. C. Middlet. ibid. 175, feq.]
The peculiar ornament of the fenaiorian tunic was the latus clavus, as it was called, being a broad ftrip of purple fewed upon the forepart of it, and running down the middle of the breaft, which was the proper diftinction between them and the knights, who wore a much narrower ftripe of the fame colour, and in, the fame manner &. The. fafhion alfo of their flioes was peculiar, and different from that of the reft of the cky : this difference appeared in the colour, fiiape, and ornament of the flioes. The colour of them was black, while others wore them of any colour perhaps, agree- able to their feveral fancies; the form of them was fome- what^like to a fhort boot, reaching up to the middle of the leg, as they are fometimes (&en in antient ftatues and bas- reliefs ; and the proper ornament of them was an half moon fewed, or faftened upon the forepart of them, near the ancle h . — [e Suet. Jul. Csf. 80. Plin. Hift. 33. 1. h Juv. 7. 192. Hor. fat. 1. 6. 28. Middlet. ibid.] Confuls, praetors, aediles, tribunes, csV. during the year of their.magiftracy, always wore the prastexta, or a gown bor- dered round with adlripe of purple J . In which habit alfo, as has been fignified above, all the reft of the fenate, who had already borne thofe offices, ufed to affift at the public feftivals and.folemnities k . — [' Cic.^oR. red. in Sen. 5. k Cic. Phil. 2. 43. Senec. Controv. 1. 1. 8. Middleton, ibid. p. 176, feq.]
As to ■ other matters, relating to Roman fenators, fee Senate, fupra.
SENATUS aucloritas. In cafes where the determinations of the fenate were over-ruled by the negative of a tribune, if the fenate was generally inclined to the decree fo, in- hibited, they ufually palled a vote to the fame purpofe, and in the fame words, which, inftead of a decree, was called fenatus aucloritas, or the authority of the fenate, and was entered into their journals ; yet had no other force than to teftify the judgment of the fenate on that particular queftlon, and to throw the odium of obilructing an ufeful act on the tribune who hindered it. Vid. Cic. Ep. Fam. 1. 2. & 8. 8. ad Attic. 4. 2. Liv. 4. 57. Dionyf. 55. 550. Middlet. of Rom. Senate, p. 161, 162. See Senate.
SEND, is ufed by feamen, when a fhip, either at an anchor or under fail, falls with her head, or ftern, deep into the trough of the fea, ;'. e. into a hollow made between two waves, or billows. They fay fhe fends much that way, whether it be a.-head_or a-ftern.
SENDAL, in our old writers, a kind of thin fine filk, men- tioned in the Stat. 2-. Rich. IL cap. 1. Blount.
SENECIO, groundfel, in botany, the name of a ; genus of plants, the characters of which are thefe. The flower is of the flofculous kind, being compofed of feveral fmall flofcules, divided into many fegenents at the ends, and contained in a one-leaved cup ; which is firft of a cylindric fhape, and afterwards of a conic, and is divided into many fegments at 2 G g 2 the
