Senaculum

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In ancient Rome, a senaculum was a meeting place for the Roman senators before the beginning of a senate session. Theodor Mommsen spoke of a “waiting place” in this context, since the senators probably waited here until the quorum for holding a regular Senate meeting was reached. Only then did the actual session begin and the senators were allowed to enter the assembly building.

Lore

The written tradition names three such senacula , which existed since republican times, were abandoned in the course of time with regard to their function and only survived as a place name. The oldest mention can be found with Marcus Terentius Varro , who in his work De lingua Latina ("About the Latin language") writes of one of the senacula that it was above the Graecostasis , in the area of ​​the Concordia temple and the 121 BC. Chr. Built Basilica Opimia . Here the senators or "elders" (seniores) would have met, which the Greeks call a gerousia ("council of elders"). As early as the 1st century, Valerius Maximus reported in the past tense that the Senate had previously stayed in a place called senaculum in his day in order not to have to invite him to a meeting by circular. Rather, the senators would have gone directly to the Curia upon request . The Curia of the Late Republican Period refers to the Hostilia Curia , which rose in sight of the senaculum in the Roman Forum . The location on the forum is confirmed by Macrobius in late antiquity , according to which the senaculum was in front of the altar of the temple of Saturn .

The most detailed information on the senacula is available from the Roman lexicographer Sextus Pompeius Festus , who wrote in the 2nd century . After a first brief definition ( senaculum locus senatorum , "Senaculum is the place of the senators") he explains that there were three senacula in Rome , where senate sessions were usually held. He relies on the work of an otherwise unknown Nicostratus on the Senate. Accordingly, one was where the Concordia temple was now between the Capitol and the Forum. Here the senators would have consulted with the "elders". Another senaculum was at the Porta Capena , a third at the temple of Bellona , where the Senate could negotiate with foreign delegates who were not wanted in the city.

A fourth senaculum opened up to earlier from a - point at - possibly corrupt Livy , who in presenting the censors measures v of the year 174th The establishment of a portico from the Temple of Saturn in Capitolium to the senaculum and above it to the Curia is mentioned. Mommsen located this senaculum on the Capitol and connected it to the curia calabra . Lawrence Richardson Jr. was able to show, however, that the formulation in Capitolium in Livy can only mean "along the Capitol" and meant the foot of the hill. A fourth senaculum on the Capitol thus never existed.

The fact that Senate meetings could themselves be held in a senaculum , as Festus falsely states (in quibus senatus haberi solitus sit) and as Alfred Klotz understood it as a later practice, is considered to be excluded. It also contradicts the further explanations in Festus and is probably based on an incorrect representation of his source Nicostratus, who was probably a Greek.

Location and layout

No idea can be gained about the design of the senacula . It is not known whether they had structural structures such as a roof or a portico. The written sources do not give any indications, attempts to interpret archaeological findings in the corresponding area of ​​the forum were not successful. This applied to Henry Thédenat's proposal, introduced with great care, to use a tuff substructure between the arch of Septimius Severus and the umbilicus for the location of the senaculum . Homer F. Rebert identified in 1925 in the pronaos area of Lucius Opimius in 121 BC. BC, the Concordia temple erected a podium foundation, which was not part of the construction of the temple, but must have been built around the same time due to the construction technology. He linked this podium with the senaculum of the forum, mainly because there were no other structures in this area that could have been used for this purpose. Giuseppe Lugli summed up that it is not known whether the senaculum on the forum was a covered or uncovered place, and Lawrence Richardson Jr. admits that the complex was artificially terraced to a certain extent.

More than the approximate localization is not known for the other two senacula either. Livy reports that after the Battle of Cannae, the Senate in 215 BC Met regularly ad portam Capenam . Possibly the choice of the location was related to the sacred legal regulations of Rome, which forbade holders of a military empire to enter the actual Rome within its sacred city limits, the Pomerium . This was circumvented by the Senate meeting and negotiating outside the Pomerium if necessary. In this case, a senaculum near the conference venue was also useful there. This certainly applied to the third senaculum , the citra aedem Bellonae and thus outside the Pomerium. Like the neighboring Temple of Apollo in circo, the Bellona Temple was the classic meeting place of the Senate outside the Pomerium and was often mentioned as such in ancient tradition.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Varro, De lingua Latina 5,156 ( digitized version ).
  2. ↑ Macrobius, Saturnalia 1,8,2.
  3. ^ Festus, De verborum significatu 455 ( Lindsay ).
  4. ^ Festus, De verborum significatu 470 (Lindsay).
  5. ↑ Livy, Ab urbe condita 41,27,7.
  6. ^ Theodor Mommsen: Roman State Law. Volume 3, 2nd section. Hirzel, Leipzig 1888, p. 914, note 3.
  7. ^ Lawrence Richardson Jr .: The Approach to the Temple of Saturn in Rome. In: American Journal of Archeology . Volume 84, 1980, pp. 51-62, here pp. 61 f.
  8. ↑ George Graham Mason: Senacula and Meeting Places of the Roman Senate. In: The Classical Journal. Volume 83, 1987, pp. 39-50, here p. 49.
  9. ↑ Alfred Klotz : Senaculum. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume II A, 2, Stuttgart 1923, Col. 1453 f. (here col. 1454).
  10. ^ Theodor Mommsen: Roman State Law. Volume 3, 2nd section. Hirzel, Leipzig 1888, p. 914 note 2; George Graham Mason: Senacula and Meeting Places of the Roman Senate. In: The Classical Journal. Volume 83, 1987, pp. 39-50, here p. 42 f.
  11. ↑ Henry Thédenat: Le Forum Romain et les Forum Imperiaux. 3. Edition. Hachette, Paris 1904, p. 67 fig. 5, p. 104 f. ( Digitized version )
  12. ^ Homer F. Rebert, Henri Marceau: The Temple of Concord in the Roman Forum. Part I: Homer F. Rebert: An Analysis of the Remains. In: Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. Volume 5, 1925, pp. 53-75, here pp. 58-61.
  13. ^ Giuseppe Lugli: Roma antica. Il centro monumentale. Bardi, Rome 1946, p. 92 f.
  14. ^ Lawrence Richardson Jr .: A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1992, p. 348 sv Senaculum.
  15. ^ Lily Ross Taylor , Russell T. Scott: Seating Space in the Roman Senate and the Senatores Pedarii. In: Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association. Volume 100, 1969, pp. 529-582; here p. 569 f.