Walking Senators

[guidoLaMoto]

The Roman Senate conducted business in a hierarchical way, with senators speaking in order determined by their importance & influence by virtue of elected office, seniority etc. They then voted in order by walking to one side of the room or the other....Those less important members rarely got to speak, but merely voted.... They were referred to somewhat demeamingly as "walking senators."

I read this recently, maybe in Cicero's speeches against Cataline or one his more famous trials. A search on Perseus for "senatores ambulantes" came up blank...and a search on Duck-- said the term referred to lesser senators who walked about town making themselves available to the public (???) but could give no specific references.

Can anybody enlighten me?

[guy]

4 hours ago, guidoLaMoto said:

read this recently, maybe in Cicero's speeches against Cataline or one his more famous trials. A search on Perseus for "senatores ambulantes" came up blank...and a search on Duck-- said the term referred to lesser senators who walked about town making themselves available to the public (???) but could give no specific references.

I never heard of that term before. I don’t know any Latin, but the term “senatores ambulantes” doesn’t seem right. The term “senatores pedarii” would seem better, but I don’t think Cicero used that term either. Here is a later use of the term “senatores pedarii.”
 

 

https://latin.packhum.org/loc/1254/1/93/316-323?utm_source=copilot.com#93

 

Here is an English translation of the above passage from the Roman grammarian Aulus Gellius (AD 125-180). Gellius was known for his “Attic Nights,” a compilation of notes on grammar, philosophy, and history.

 

Aulus Gellius,

Noctes Atticae 3.18 - Translation

"What 'pedarian senators' are, and why they are called that; and what the origin is of the words found in the traditional edict of the consuls:

"senators and all those who are permitted to give an opinion in the senate.'

There are many people who think that pedarii senatores were so called because they did not give their opinion in the senate by speaking, but instead went over with their feet to the opinion of another.

But what then? When a senatorial decree was passed by division, did not all the senators give their vote with their feet?

There is also another explanation of this term, which is said to be the true one, and which Gavius Bassus recorded in his commentaries. He says that in ancient times those senators who had held a curule magistracy were accustomed, as a mark of honor, to be carried to the Curia in a chariot, in which there was a seat on which they sat - and for this reason it was called the sella curulis. But those senators who had not yet held a curule magistracy went to the Curia on foot.

Therefore, the senators who were not curule magistrates were called pedarii, 'the walking ones.'

 

Edited March 18 by guy

[guidoLaMoto]

Thanks. Guy....You're right-- the correct term is senatores pedarii (I read a note somewhere calling them "walking senators" which I then translated literally but incorrectly as senatores ambulantes).

There's at least two theories on the term-- curile senators (those who held high office) who arrived by cart (carrus) and sat in curile chairs vs the pedarii who arrived on foot...or from the fact that pedarii never got to speak but merely expressed support of the speaker by walking to his side. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2007.01.0072:book=3:chapter=18&highlight=pedarii

Another interesting treatment of the Senate during the Republic https://youtu.be/QcWqu0Ifxjc?si=bT4glKAbINhePaGa