It must not be supposed that there never was friction between emperor and Senate.  The Senate was often—­or rather generally—­servile, because it was intimidated.  But there were times when it was inclined to assert itself; some of its members occasionally allowed themselves a certain freedom of speech, toward which one emperor might be surprisingly lenient or good-naturedly contemptuous, and another outrageously vindictive.  In the year 64 the Senate was outwardly docile enough, although at heart it was anything but loyal to his Highness Nero the Head of the State.  It must always be remembered that among the Senate were 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