Did the Roman Senate actually have ~300 and up to 900 senators?

by i_hate_usernames

The number of senators in the Roman Senate really confused me.

  1. During Caesar the senate had up to 900 senators, but the dimension of the Curia Julia doesn't seem to be able to fit that much senators.
  2. Most depictions of the Roman Senate, from paintings to TV shows, show a handful of senators - only ~100 at best.
  3. Wikipedia mentions that all senators had to speak before a vote could be held, and senators could potentially filibuster until nightfall when a vote could no longer be held - wouldn't that happen anyway if the Senate had 300 memberes? What about the pedarii?

As an additional question - what defines a senator to be a pedarii? Were they not permitted to speak, or simply had no chance?

WaterMelonMan1

I can help you out at least on the number of senators. After the reforms of Sulla in 81 B.C., holding the office of Quaestor was the requirement to get into senate. The Censores were the officials in charge of revising the senate rolls and did so every year (in the earlier roman republic this happened less frequently, but let's just stay with the late republic) Edit: actually not, during the 1st century B.C. it was more complicated than that, take a look down at u/XenophonTheAthenian , adding the new Quaestores to the senate.

Now, after Sulla's reforms, there were 20 Quaestores elected each year, so we could assume that makes 20 new Senatores. Basically, membership was lifelong if you weren't kicked out (e.g. through a Nota Censoria as punishment for bad behaviour). The minimum age for Quaestorship was 30/32 years for Patricii/Plebeii Edit: More likely it was 30 years irrespective of class. If we assume 35 as the average entry age and that an upper class roman could expect to live at least to the age of 50, that makes 20 times 15 Senatores in senate as an expected value of members. Just with this rough estimate you can see that there needed to be at least 300 senatores (more like an lower bound) in the late republic senate, in actuality it was more like 600 under Sulla! It was also possible to get into senate just by being deemed fit for the job by the responsible officials, so while in power Sulla and Caesar artificially inflated the senate with their supporters, raising the number even more.

On questions 1 and 2: This is because not all Senatores were always present at every debate. Many of them were serving officials that worked in the provinces, far away from the capital, or just didn't attend because of private reasons. This also explains why a relatively small building was enough on most occasions to house the assembled senate.

Question 3: Well, as i already mentioned, it wasn't like every senator was present all the time. Also, while technically speaking all senators had the right to speak, this was not practical. There was a large group of Senatores, the Pedarii, who didn't speak. This group consisted of low-rank Senatores, most likely plebeian conscripts or junior officials like quaestores or tribunes.. According to Kunkel's and Wittman's "Staatsordnung und Staatspraxis der römischen Republik" it is unclear wheter there was an actual legal distinction between regular Senatores and Pedarii, or if it was only a matter of pragmatism, but we know for sure that they did not speak in senate and only participated in senate votes (which is where their name comes from). We don't know much about their rights, how the group was consisted. It could be either: They were legally/by custom prohibited from speaking or they just had no chance because of limited time and their limited influence.

If you're looking for reading material on the subject, you can find some great online sources at Google Books, i just stumbled upon "Rank and Participation in the Republican Senate" by Francis Ryan, which seems perfectly on point for your questions (i personally only use german sources, i don't think they'd help you?)