THE ROMAN SENATE

During the republic, the senate, although it could not make laws,  was the dominant force in Roman politics; its decrees virtually had the force of law and strongly influenced legislation.  The senate was not an elected body.  One became a senator simply by virtue of being elected to the quaestorship, the lowest office among the chief Roman magistracies (the others being the praetorship, consulship and censorship).

Below is the Roman Curia or Senate House (here seen from the Palatine hill).  The three surviving columns of the temple of Castor and Pollux are in the right lower corner of the photograph.  The Basilica Julia is hidden by the wall in the lower left hand corner.
 

Thanks to Leo Curran.

For most of the republic, the Senate consisted of three hundred men, but swelled to over a thousand in the time of Julius Caesar.  Augustus reduced it to six hundred.  The Curia that we see above was constructed by Diocletian in the late third century AD on the foundation of the building begun by Julius Caesar (Curia Julia) and completed by Augustus.  Inside there are three broad steps on both long sides with a platform against the rear wall.  These broad steps would have space for the chairs of three hundred senators, but certainly not the 1000 of the late republic.  The platform at the rear no doubt supported the famous statue and altar of Victory that was originally installed in the Curia Julia (ca. 29 BC) and remained a fixture of Diocletian's rebuilding.  In the fourth century this statue and altar became a bone of contention between pagan and Christian senators.  Eventually the Christians won and these two symbols of paganism were banished from the Curia in 382 AD.

The Senate did not always meet in the Curia; it also convened in various temples and at other sites.  For example, Julius Caesar's assassination did not take place in the Curia Julia, but in the Curia of Pompey, which was a part of his theater complex in the Campus Martius.
 

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