included many of the highest-born, proudest, and
strictest of the Roman nobles or men of eminence. To them the whole
succession of emperors was still a series of upstarts--the family of
the Caesars--usurping powers which properly belonged to the Senate.
You could not expect these persons, aristocrats at heart, and many of
them true patriots, bearing names distinguished throughout Roman
history, to acquiesce in the spectacle of one who was no better than
they, as he passed up to his huge palace on the Palatine Hill,
escorted by his guards, or as he entered the Senate-House to give what
were practically his orders, perhaps scarcely deigning to recognise
men whose families had been illustrious while his was obscure. At
times a member here or there was calculating his own chances of
supplanting the man who galled him by condescension, or coldness, or
even insult. These aristocrats felt as the French nobles might feel
with Napoleon. And on his side the emperor, good or bad, never felt
quite safe from a plot to overthrow him. On the whole these earlier
emperors were much engaged in keeping the Senate in its place, and
were inclined, with quite sufficient reason, to be jealous and
suspicious of its more important members.

It was natural, therefore, that they should keep a very practical
control over the composition of that body. The situation was much as
if a modern nation were ruled by a virtual autocrat assisted by a
House of Peers. The senators and their families formed a "senatorial
order." So far as the Romans had such a thing as a peerage under the
empire, it is to be found in the senatorial order. And as a title may
now be either hereditary or conferred by the sovereign as the "fount
of honour," so, under the Roman emperors, the right to belong to the
senatorial order might come from birth or from the choice of the head
of the state. Normally you belonged to the "order" if you were the son
of a senator; you ranked in that class of society. To belong to the
Senate itself and to take part in its debates you must then have held
a certain public office and must possess not less than L8000. The
L8000 is the minimum. Most senators were rich, and some were
enormously wealthy. They are found with a capital of L3,000,000 or
L4,000,000 and an income up to L150,000. As for the public office
which you must first hold, you could not even be a candidate for it
unless you were already of the "order." If, when you are a senator,
the