Known places of senatorial meetings

[Novosedoff]

Hi all,

Apparently, the oldest one was the Curia Hostilia. It was later replaced by Curia Cornelia and Curia Julia, but all of them resided approximately at the same place next to the Forum.

Forum itself apparently hosted a number of senatorial meetings too right under the open sky (this was incredibly rare, only "when a bull spoke out").

There is also information about the following places of the senatorial meetings: Temple of Castor and Pollux, Temple of Concord, Temple of Honor and Virtue, Temple of Jupiter Stator.

The newly elected consuls would often (or always?) gather their first meeting with the Senate on the Capitoline Hill presumably inside the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus??

 On very rare occassions when senators had to meet foreign envoys or Roman generals the meetings took place outside the city, incl. Campus Martius, Temple of Bellona, Temple of Apollo.

Under both Augustus and Tiberius the meetings often took place in the Bibliotheca Palatina. Also Atrium Vestae hosted some meetings too.

Finally, Augustus built the Temple of Mars Ultor which hosted the senatorial meetings to discuss the matters of war and to celebrate the victory.

Apparently Pantheon hosted some meetings too (at least under Hadrian).

Have there been any other known places?

 

Edited August 31, 2022 by Novosedoff

[caldrail]

The Senate could meet at any nominated place when summoned to convene. They preferred significant locations.

[Novosedoff]

 🙂Surely, one may pose the questions "How many participants does a meeting need to have in order to be counted?" or "Do we regard Roman baths as significant locations to the public?"  

Augustus implemented the rule which required the minimum of 400 senators to be present at any meeting. Under Alexander Severus the minimum was set at 70. 

I was hoping to compile the full list of such locations of which we would know that they did host some meetings and did fit into the scheme of minimum requirements. I don't think there were many, because the number of public buildings of  "significance" is still limited by space between walls, while any gatherings outside Rome would be illegal (senators needed to seek an approval from the emperor first in order to travel)

 

[caldrail]

Significance was on civic or religious grounds. Bathhouses don't count. Senators only required permission to travel to Egypt, the province retained by Augustus as his own.

[Pompieus]

The Senate needed to be convened by a magistrate, and could meet in any inaugurated space (templum);  and was preceded by a sacrifice and the taking of the auspices. (according to Gellius 14.7)

In addition to those mentioned by "Novosedoff", meetings were held in the temple of Fides (before the killing of Tiberius Gracchus) and in the temple of Tellus.

There was also a curia associated with Pompey's Theater complex in the Campus Martius.  The meeting at which Caesar was assassinated was apparently held there.

[Novosedoff]

I doubt that the collected evidence from the ancient sources allows us to estimate the total number of meetings per each location in order to be able to judge  about the most preferable of all. However given the obvious fact that any temple must mainly serve its very basic purpose of worship, I reckon that Curia Hostilia / Curia Julia must have been the most frequently visited places for the meetings. Nonetheless the question of precise numbers remains open as it is still unclear whether Curia Hostilia / Curia Julia hosted 50% / 60% / 70%  of all senatorial meetings...

Presumably any holiday dedicated to any deity would require a special attendance by the senate in the corresponding temple, that's why Romans cared so much about their calendar (a separate temple built for each day?)

I once raised on the forum the very easy question (as I thought) of how many laws per annum the Roman senate would enact on average, and unfortunately got no answers. It is really a pity that historians don't like the digits 😊

[Novosedoff]

I have here a quotation from one source related to 354 AD that says that every year Romans would celebrate 69 festivals. In my view, this means that at least 19% (69 / 365) of all meetings attended by the senate must have been held outside Curia Julia.

 

PS. Although wait a second. Senators would have their meetings only twice per month (at least at the time of Augustus). This means that the above estimate is irrelevant 😂

Edited September 3, 2022 by Novosedoff

[caldrail]

The Senate convened at the summons of a magistrate, more senior the better, and could meet at any place within one mile of city provided it had been consecrated to the gods.

Edited September 3, 2022 by caldrail

[Novosedoff]

7 minutes ago, caldrail said:

Senate convened at the summons of a magistrate, more senior the better, and could meet at any place within one mile of city provided it had been consecrated to the gods

Understood 🙂 frankly, my main motivation to study the history was due to my interests in numbers. Although I ain't an adherent of Fomenko's theory on new chronology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_chronology_(Fomenko)?wprov=sfla1

[caldrail]

Formenko appears to dismiss archeological evidence. Ooops. I'm such a party pooper. 

[Novosedoff]

3 hours ago, caldrail said:

Formenko appears to dismiss archeological evidence. Ooops. I'm such a party pooper. 

I have a former colleague of mine who was lectured topology and differential geometry by Fomenko at Moscow State University only to become a complete nuts in history (apparently Fomenko advertised his freaking books to his student audiences. Btw Fomenko is a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which is like the Royal Society in the UK - this makes it all look even more stupid).

For me studying the history is more akin to studying the internal logic of events, how one thing impacts another. Numbers do help to shed some light on that. But when someone completely ignores the historical logic only to fit the numbers into a scheme, producing some bizarre conclusions, this makes the numbers and their application look a bit crazy. I do understand that there may be some historical patters that tend to repeat themselves over the ages like DNA chains or Kondratiev waves ie economic cycles . But turning history upside down to nourish the nationalistic sentiments in readers minds obviously smells foul.

Edited September 4, 2022 by Novosedoff