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The Senate of the Roman Empire was a political institution in the ancient Roman Empire. After the fall of the Roman Republic, the constitutional balance of power shifted from the Roman Senate to the Roman Emperor. Beginning with the first emperor, Augustus, the Emperor and the Senate were technically two co-equal branches of government. In ...
Coin of Pescennius Niger, a Roman usurper who claimed imperial power AD 193–194. Legend: IMP CAES C PESC NIGER IVST AVG. While the imperial government of the Roman Empire was rarely called into question during its five centuries in the west and fifteen centuries in the east, individual emperors often faced unending challenges in the form of usurpation and perpetual civil wars. [30]
The Curia Julia in the Roman Forum, the seat of the imperial Senate. The first emperor, Augustus, inherited a senate whose membership had been increased to 900 senators by his predecessor, the Roman Dictator Julius Caesar. Augustus reduced the size of the senate to 600 members, and after this point, the size of the senate was never again ...
The Senate also confirmed his position as princeps senatus, which originally meant the member of the Senate with the highest precedence, [141] but in this case it became an almost regnal title for a leader who was first in charge. [142] The honorific augustus was inherited by all future emperors and became the de facto main title of the emperor.
At the recommendation of his relative Gaius Septimius Severus, the emperor Marcus Aurelius (r. 161–180) granted him entry into the senatorial ranks. [16] Membership in the senatorial order was a prerequisite to attain positions within the cursus honorum and to gain entry into the Roman Senate. Nevertheless, it appears that Severus' career ...
Marcus Opellius Macrinus (/ m ə ˈ k r ɪ n ə s /; c. 165 – June 218) was a Roman emperor who reigned from April 217 to June 218, jointly with his young son Diadumenianus.Born in Caesarea (now called Cherchell, in modern Algeria), in the Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis to an equestrian family of Berber origins, he became the first emperor who did not hail from the senatorial ...
The political role of the Senate went into final eclipse, [33] no more being heard of the division by the Augustan Principate of the provinces between imperial provinces and senatorial provinces. [34] Lawyers developed a theory of the total delegation of authority into the hands of the emperor. [35]
During the transition from republic to empire, the constitutional balance of power shifted back to the executive (the Roman Emperor). Theoretically, the senate elected each new emperor, although in practice, it was the army which made the choice. The powers of an emperor, (his imperium) existed, in theory at least, by virtue of his legal standing.