Two members of the Senate were elected annually to lead both the Senate and the army as consuls. When the Romans overthrew the monarchy in 509 B.C., the Senate remained the highest governmental body. As a deeply hierarchal society, the oldest families of Rome formed the powerful Patrician class, and the patriarch of each of those families served on the Senate, the advisory board for the king. The word Senate comes from the Latin word “senex,” or “old man.” The Senate was, by design, a council of elders.
The previous king’s sons did have a greater chance of inheriting the throne, but the Senate made the ultimate acclamation of the monarch. Kingship in Rome was not divine or even a familial right. Rome’s original system was a monarchy, though quite different from the medieval monarchies that form our image of the word. Though the Republic and the Empire receive the most attention, Rome was already over two hundred years old when the Republic arose. Tarquinius and Lucretia by Peter Paul Rubens – 1610
