Last time i mentioned how I’d like to discuss the role the senate played during the monarchy, so that’s what we’ll be discussing today.Due to the kings having most of the power during the Roman kingdom this blog will be a little shorter than usual but hopefully you still find the content interesting.



So as we know the senate began with the 100 men Romulus chose to be it’s founding members, these men were the leading men in Rome at the time (didn’t take much) and although the Senate was expanded at various times during the Monarchy their roles stayed roughly the same.



It’s best not to think of the Senate as rulers at this point in history as the kings at this time had absolute authority as only they could call the senate to a meeting, they were more an advisory body to the king ,technically the Senate could pass laws but it was normally just putting a rubber stamp on the decrees of the king.The role of the senate at this time was to debate laws, make recommendations to the king (which he could ignore),settle local issues,adjudicate law cases and perform the day to day running of the city.

My boy Cicero





Now I’d like for you to put all that aside as we discuss the one immense power the senate did wield the choosing of a new king, you see Rome was like no where else the kings were a elected position.The process when the king died was called an interregnum and in this period the senate had the absolute power the kings had.What happens is that a senator will take charge in the role of the king for 5 days at a time before another senator takes over, this was called an interrex and this would go on till a new king was found.One of the duties if you were the senator in charge would be to look for a new king so there was an incentive to work fast so you could get your man vetted and selected, if you did find a candidate he would be presented to the senate and they would vote on whether he was an acceptable candidate if he wasn’t then a new candidate would be searched for while the senate continued the power sharing, but once a suitable candidate was found he had to be approved by the people and religious authorities which was always a formality and as long as everything went okay the candidate would return to the senators who would rubber stamp the election of their new king



So like i said shorter episode today guys! tomorrow will be a discussion on the 6 Successors of Romulus and after that the Republic finally begins see you next time!

