Roman Senate

The Roman Senate is presented less as an autonomous governing institution than as a crucial stage on which changing power relations in Rome are publicly confirmed. Its most consequential appearances occur during the rise of Septimius Severus, when military force and political ceremony converge: the Senate’s decisions give imperial authority a formal shape, but fear determines the conditions under which those decisions are made.

Position in the Political Order

The book distinguishes between states ruled by a sole Prince and states in which a Prince governs alongside hereditary Barons possessing their own authority and followers. In the first type, sovereignty is concentrated in the ruler, while other officials are obeyed as servants or ministers rather than loved in their own right. The Roman Senate belongs to the wider political environment of Rome, but the evidence surrounding it emphasizes that its practical authority is subordinate to the balance of military power and the personal standing of the claimant to the Empire.

This relationship between institution and ruler is also visible in the book’s treatment of conquered and incorporated territories. Political orders survive when their former ruling lines, laws, and customs are either removed or carefully managed; they become unstable when the old sources of allegiance remain available to opponents. The Senate therefore appears within a larger argument about how authority is maintained: formal recognition matters, but it cannot substitute for control of armies, the elimination of rivals, or a reputation strong enough to discourage resistance.

The Senate and the Rise of Septimius Severus

The Senate’s clearest political action occurs after Septimius Severus marches on Rome. Severus commands the army in Illyria and persuades it to advance under the stated purpose of avenging the death of Pertinax, who had been killed by the Praetorian Guard. He conceals his imperial ambition, moves rapidly, and reaches Italy before the Senate and the wider Roman political order understand the full significance of his expedition.

Once Severus arrives in Rome, the Senate acts under fear. It elects him Emperor, and Didius Julianus is put to death. The sequence shows the Senate functioning as a mechanism of recognition after military power has already decided the immediate question. Its election does not create Severus’s strength; rather, it gives a public and constitutional form to a fait accompli produced by the marching army and the collapse of Julianus’s position.

The event also reveals the Senate’s vulnerability. Its formal authority remains indispensable to the language of imperial succession, yet its choice is made under coercion rather than free deliberation. The institution can confer legitimacy on the victorious commander, but it cannot independently prevent the commander from becoming victorious. In this political drama, the Senate’s chamber is the point at which force is translated into office.

Recognition, Rivalry, and Imperial Consolidation

The Senate reappears after Severus has dealt with his first military rival, Niger. A second claimant, Albinus, commands in the West, and Severus judges it dangerous to fight both opponents openly at once. He therefore uses deception against Albinus while presenting his own position as already sanctioned by Rome. Severus tells Albinus that the Senate has chosen him Emperor, offers him the title of Caesar, and claims that a senatorial decision has made them colleagues.

Albinus accepts these statements as true. After Severus defeats and kills Niger and restores tranquility in the East, he returns to Rome and turns the Senate into the setting for a new political accusation. He complains that Albinus, forgetting the favors granted to him, has treacherously sought Severus’s destruction. The Senate thus becomes part of the rhetorical preparation for war: Severus frames his attack on Albinus as punishment for ingratitude rather than as the elimination of a competing imperial claimant.

Severus then goes to Gaul, where he strips Albinus of his dignities and life. The Senate’s role in this episode is therefore double. It supplies the institutional language through which Severus presents his authority and his conflict with Albinus, while the decisive settlement again occurs through military action. The institution helps organize the appearance of lawful succession, but Severus’s empire is secured by the combination of force, timing, and political artifice.

The Senate as an Instrument of Reputation and Fear

The book’s analysis of Severus depends on the contrast between public respect and private coercion. Severus is cruel and rapacious and oppresses the people, yet he keeps the soldiers as friends. His strength of character makes him admirable to both the people and the army: the people remain awestruck, while the soldiers are respectful and contented. The Senate’s submission fits this larger pattern, in which political actors respond to a ruler whose military reputation makes resistance dangerous.

Severus is described through the paired images of the lion and the fox. He possesses the lion’s fierceness and the fox’s craft, using open force against Niger and calculated deception against Albinus. The Senate is caught within this combination. It recognizes the ruler whom the army has carried to Rome, and it later provides a political setting in which the ruler can define his rival as a traitor. Its authority is not absent, but it is exercised within limits imposed by a commander who controls the forces capable of enforcing or overturning its decisions.

The contrast with Caracalla sharpens the point. Caracalla has qualities admired by the people and the army, including a warlike spirit, endurance, and contempt for luxury. Yet his extreme cruelty makes him hated by everyone and so feared by his immediate associates that a centurion eventually kills him in the midst of his army. Against this example, Severus’s success illustrates that imperial durability requires more than terror: a ruler must preserve military loyalty and political reputation. The Senate can recognize power, but it cannot rescue a ruler whose conduct has destroyed the relationships on which power rests.

Historical and Narrative Significance

The Roman Senate’s appearances condense the book’s broader account of political legitimacy. Institutional recognition, inherited custom, military command, personal reputation, and fear do not operate separately; they reinforce or undermine one another. In Severus’s case, the Senate’s election helps convert conquest of Rome into an imperial settlement, while later senatorial language helps justify the campaign against Albinus. Yet the underlying source of authority remains the army and the ruler’s ability to control events.

The Senate is consequently portrayed as a barometer of political reality. Its decisions reveal who has become powerful enough to be recognized, but they also reveal the weakness of a political order that must ratify a victor after the fact. The book does not treat the Senate as the primary maker of imperial power. It treats it as the institutional surface through which military success, strategic deception, and fear acquire the appearance of public rule.