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The princeps senatus (pl. principes senatus), in English the leader of the senate, was the first member by precedence on the membership rolls of the Roman Senate. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Although officially out of the cursus honorum and possessing no imperium , this office conferred prestige on the senator holding it.
The presiding magistrate would then begin a discussion by referring an issue to the senators, who would discuss the issue, one at a time, by order of seniority, with the first to speak, the most senior senator, known as the princeps senatus (leader of the Senate), [1] who was then followed by ex-consuls (consulares), and then the praetors and ...
The title lent plausibility to his claim to be the restorer of republican institutions vitiated during the civil wars, and as Oxford historian Craig Walsh notes in his seminal work Classics in Room 39: "Princeps was pretty much the same idea as the latin Primus Inter pares" ("First among equals"). [2]
During Senate meetings, the Emperor sat between the two Consuls, [5] and usually acted as the presiding officer. Senators of the early Empire could ask extraneous questions or request that a certain action be taken by the Senate. Higher ranking senators spoke before lower ranking senators, although the Emperor could speak at any time. [5]
The Senate of the Roman Republic. U.S. Government Printing Office, Senate Document 103-23. Cicero, Marcus Tullius (1841). The Political Works of Marcus Tullius Cicero: Comprising his Treatise on the Commonwealth; and his Treatise on the Laws. Translated from the original, with Dissertations and Notes in Two Volumes. By Francis Barham, Esq ...
At this point, the Senate also granted Octavian the title "augustus" and the position of princeps senatus, or the first Senator. When Augustus, as Octavian was renamed, gave up the consulship in 23 BC, [ 5 ] the Senate granted him an expansion of his proconsular authority, with legal authority at the same level as those of the normal consuls.
The senate, which had long acted as a check on aristocratic ambitions, was unable to stop these immense commands, which culminated eventually with the reduction of the number of meaningfully-independent governors during the triumviral period to three men and, with the end of the republic, to one man.
As soon as this occurred, the senate and the magistrates acquiesced. Tiberius' efforts were so successful, that when the senate declared him Princeps, he made his acceptance appear to be a concession to the demands of the senators. [10] Under Tiberius, the power to elect magistrates was transferred from the assemblies to the senate. [11]