Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/91

Rh ative character appears to have attached. The Roman gentes indeed, in the form in which they are known to us, had no visible head: no individual was called to represent the common patriarch, from whom all the clansmen were, or believed themselves, descended. But it was probably otherwise at the period when the state developed itself out of the aggregate of clans: then, in all probability, the assembly of the elders of the several clans formed the original senate, and accordingly, at a later period, each senator might still be regarded as in a certain sense the representative of one of elementary units of the state—a gens. This explains why the once nominated senator ordinarily continued—not certainly de jure, but de facto,—a member of the senate for life. This further explains why the number of the seats in the senate remained a fixed one, and equal to the number of clanships belonging to the state; so that the amalgamation of the three original communities, each of which consisted of a number of clanships, was necessarily in constitutional law accompanied by an increase of the seats in the senate. This representation, however, of the clans by means of the senate was rather typical of the design of the institution than a legal reality; for in the selection of senators the king was entirely unrestricted: it depended wholly upon himself whether or not he would grant a seat in it even to non-burgesses. In saying this much, however, we do not mean either to affirm or deny that such a thing occurred during the regal period. So long as the individuality of the clans continued to be vividly realised, it probably continued to be at least the rule, that when a senator died, the king summoned in his room another experienced and elderly man of the same clanship; but with the gradual amalgamation and internal union of the community, the selection of senators came to be practically left to the free judgment of the king, who was regarded as abusing his trust only when he omitted to fill up vacancies.

The tenure of the senatorial seats for life, however, and the fact of their being based upon the essential elements of the Roman state, secured to the senate a very different measure of importance from that which would have belonged to a mere assemblage of the king's own confidants. Formally, indeed, the privilege of the senators was limited, as respected the king, simply to the giving advice when they were asked. The king convoked the senate when he pleased,