Precedence in the Republican senate

This study was conceived as a history of the principatus as an institution of the republican senate. But the title given above is perhaps more accurate, since account is taken of the precedence in debate belonging to consuls-designate and consulars, and of other high places in the interrogatio. The thesis is divided broadly into two parts. Chapters 1-3 examine participation in debate: Chapter 1, the extent to which attendance affected the participation of junior members; Chapter 2, the rights to speak and vote in the senate; Chapter 3, privileged positions in debate other than the principatus. Chapters 4-8 focus on the principatus: in the fourth chapter we establish termini for the existence of the post, and use these dates to help construct a list of principes senatus are collected. Appointment to the principatus is studied in the sixth chapter. With Chapter 7 we return to the interrogatio, this time focusing on the influence exercised by the senator questioned first. We are then in a position to discuss ancient and and modern assessments of (or assumptions about) the influence of the princeps senatus, and this analysis constitutes Chapter 8. The general view presented is one of a princeps both less privileged and more influential than is widely believed. Less privileged because the right to speak was not in itself a privilege. Through an investigation of the phrase frequens senatus, we argue that attendance at a typical senate meeting was so small that junior senators were not prevented from speaking by their position on the senatorial roll; by studying the pedarii, we show that the right to speak was never denied to a class of senators, and that the Romans had no concept of a right to speak which could be distinguished from the right to vote. But the influence of the princeps can be proved. The ancient passage which denies influence to the princeps has been wrongly interpreted, and a very high proportion of the extant sententiae of principes was adopted by the senate