New scholarship on the political and religious culture of the Romans has led to a deeper appreciation of the resilience and creativity of the Roman Senate as an institution that served a changing society for over 1,500 years. Remarkably, Roman senators maintained the Senate as the focus of their lives, even as they confronted military, political, social, and ecological crises. In truth, the Senate was a locus of Roman resilience, evolving to allow senators to use their resources to preserve the state even as they constantly altered the institution.

This international conference will bring together scholars from Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States to analyze and debate the forces, peoples, and ideas that enabled Rome’s senators to use the Senate as a body that directed Rome’s political, social, and religious evolution while channeling resources and energies that enabled Rome to respond to crises. 

Moving chronologically from the Republic to the early empire, and then to late antiquity and post-Roman Europe, and finally to the early modern period, a gathering of classicists, historians, legal scholars, and social scientists will debate the mechanisms and explanations for the Senate’s unique role in making Rome the ancient world’s most long-lasting and resilient society. These speakers will also consider how the memory of Rome’s senatorial successes inspired later, non-Roman adaptations of the Senate in places as diverse as eighteenth-century America and medieval Rome.

The Senate: From Antiquity to Modern Times was organized by Michele Renee Salzman (1987 Fellow, 2008 Resident) and Edward Watts, in collaboration with the American Academy in Rome and Parco Archeologico del Colosseo.

The event will be held in English. The daily schedule is:

Tuesday, October 22

Curia Iulia, Roman Forum
Entrance: Largo della Salara Vecchia (on Via dei Fori Imperiali) 
2:30–7:00pm

Introduction
Michele Renee Salzman, University of California, Riverside

Welcome
Alfonsina Russo, Director, Parco archeologico del Colosseo
Peter N. Miller, President and CEO, American Academy in Rome

Session I
2:30pm
Presider: Michele Renee Salzman, University of California, Riverside

Francesca Boldrighini, Parco archeologico del Colosseo
From the Curia Iulia to the Church of St. Hadrian and Back: a brief Historical Summary

Eric Robinson, Indiana University
The Roman Senate and Greek Constitutional Forms: Oligarchic, Democratic, or Something Else?

Edward Watts, University of California, San Diego
How Appius Claudius Tried to Rig the Senate

Keynote
5:45pm
Introduction: Ed Watts

Gregory Koger, Director, George P. Hanley Democracy Center, University of Miami
The US Senate in Historical Perspective

Reception
7:00pm

Wednesday, October 23

American Academy in Rome
Via Angelo Masina, 5
9:00am–6:00pm

Welcome
Aliza S. Wong, Director, American Academy in Rome

Session II
9:00am
Presider: Pierfrancesco Porena, Università degli Studi di Roma Tre

Giovanni Cecconi, Università degli Studi di Firenze
Senate and Politics in the Correspondence between Marcus and Quintus Cicero

Barbara Del Giovane, Università degli Studi di Firenze
“In conventum senatorum”: Presence, Evolution, and Reaction of the Senate during the Civil Wars; a Perspective from Cicero’s Letters

Break
10:45–11:00am

Session III
11:00am
Presider: Rita Lizzi Testa, Università di Perugia

John Weisweiler, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
“lectis undique optimis viris”: Provincialisation and Elite Competition in the Flavian and Antonine Senate

Oliver Hekster, Radboud University
A Roman Senate for a Global Empire? Senators in a Connected World

Break
1:00–2:30pm

Session IV
2:30pm
Presider: Marco Maiuro, Università degli Studi di Roma, La Sapienza

Elizabeth Digeser, University of California, Santa Barbara
Tensions in Rome: Plotinus and the Third-Century CE Roman Senate

Michele Renee Salzman, University of California, Riverside
The Legacy of Constantine: The Senate in the Long Fourth Century

Break
4:15–4:30pm

Session V
4:30pm
Presider: Umberto Roberto, Università di Napoli Federico II

Silvia Orlandi, Università degli Studi di Roma, La Sapienza 
The Senatorial Inscriptions of the Colosseum: Toward a Digital Prosopography

Rita Lizzi Testa, Università degli Studi di Perugia
Theoderic, the Roman Senate, and the Pope

Reception
6:15pm

Thursday, October 24

American Academy in Rome
Via Angelo Masina, 5
9:00am–1:00pm

Welcome

Caroline Goodson, Andrew W. Mellon Humanities Professor, American Academy in Rome

Session VI
9:00am
Presider: Caroline Goodson, American Academy in Rome

Fabrizio Oppedisano, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa
Historiographic Myth of the Roman Senate in the Middle Ages

Cécile Troadec, Centre Roland Mousnier, Sorbonne Université; and Laboratoire Universitaire Histoire Cultures Italie Europe (LUHCIE), Université Grenoble Alpes
Tightrope Walkers into a New World: The End of the Senate (from 1378 to Mid-Fifteenth Century)

Caroline Winterer, Stanford University
The Senate of Rome—and Carthage: Influences on the US Founding

Break
11:15–11:30am

Concluding Remarks
11:30am

Chris Kelly, Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge

Discussion
12:00pm