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Message:: [QUOTE="Clavdivs, post: 7833601, member: 93702"]WIKIPEDIA.. if anyone is interested on the end of the Senate... if you have other sources or information please add...: Senate in the West:After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the senate continued to function under the Germanic chieftain Odoacer, and then under Ostrogothic rule. The authority of the senate rose considerably under barbarian leaders, who sought to protect the institution. This period was characterized by the rise of prominent Roman senatorial families, such as the Anicii, while the senate's leader, the princeps senatus, often served as the right hand of the barbarian leader. It is known that the senate successfully installed Laurentius as pope in 498, despite the fact that both King Theodoric and Emperor Anastasius supported the other candidate, Symmachus. The peaceful coexistence of senatorial and barbarian rule continued until the Ostrogothic leader Theodahad found himself at war with Emperor Justinian I and took the senators as hostages. Several senators were executed in 552 as revenge for the death of the Ostrogothic king, Totila. After Rome was recaptured by the imperial (Byzantine) army, the senate was restored, but the institution (like classical Rome itself) had been mortally weakened by the long war. Many senators had been killed and many of those who had fled to the east chose to remain there, thanks to favorable legislation passed by Emperor Justinian, who, however, abolished virtually all senatorial offices in Italy. The importance of the Roman senate thus declined rapidly. In 578 and again in 580, the senate sent envoys to Constantinople. They delivered 3,000 pounds (1,360 kilograms) of gold as a gift to the new emperor, Tiberius II Constantinus, along with a plea for help against the Lombards, who had invaded Italy ten years earlier. Pope Gregory I, in a sermon from 593, lamented the almost complete disappearance of the senatorial order and the decline of the prestigious institution. It is not known exactly when the Roman senate disappeared in the West, but it appears to have been in the early seventh century - it is last attested in 603, when the Gregorian register records that it acclaimed new statues of Emperor Phocas and Empress Leontia,and in 630 the Curia Julia was converted into a church (Sant'Adriano al Foro) by Pope Honorius I, which suggests that the Senate had ceased to meet there some time previously. <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Palazzo_senatorio_Rome_2011_1.jpg/300px-Palazzo_senatorio_Rome_2011_1.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" />The Palazzo Senatorio, originally built to house the revived Senate during the Roman Commune period.The title senator did continue to be used in the Early Middle Ages (it was held by Crescentius the Younger (d.998) and in its feminine form senatrix by Marozia (d.937), to give two prominent examples) but in this period it appears to have been regarded as a title of nobility and no longer indicated membership of an organized governing body. In 1144, the Commune of Rome attempted to establish a government modelled on the old Roman Republic in opposition to the temporal power of the higher nobles (in particular the Frangipani family) and the pope. It constructed a new Senate House (the Palazzo Senatorio ) for itself on the Capitoline Hill, apparently in the mistaken belief that this was the site of the ancient Senate House. Most of our sources state that there were 56 senators in the revived senate, and modern historians have therefore interpreted this to indicate that there were four senators for each of the fourteen regiones of Rome. These senators, the first real senators since the 7th century, elected as their leader Giordano Pierleoni, son of the Roman consul Pier Leoni, with the title patrician, since the term consul had been deprecated as a noble styling. The Commune came under constant pressure from the papacy and the Holy Roman Emperor during the second half of the twelfth century. From 1192 onwards the popes succeeded in reducing the 56-strong senate down to a single individual, styled Summus Senator, who subsequently became the head of the civil government of Rome under the pope's aegis.[41] Between 1191 and 1193, this was a certain Benedetto called Carus homo or carissimo. Senate in the East:Main article: Byzantine SenateThe senate continued to exist in Constantinople, although it evolved into an institution that differed in some fundamental forms from its predecessor. Designated in Greek as synkletos, or assembly, the Senate of Constantinople was made up of all current or former holders of senior ranks and official positions, plus their descendants. At its height during the 6th and 7th centuries, the Senate represented the collective wealth and power of the Empire, on occasion nominating and dominating individual emperors. In the second half of the 10th century a new office, proëdrus (Greek: πρόεδρος), was created as head of the senate by Emperor Nicephorus Phocas. Up to the mid-11th century, only eunuchs could become proëdrus, but later this restriction was lifted and several proëdri could be appointed, of which the senior proëdrus, or protoproëdrus (Greek: πρωτοπρόεδρος), served as the head of the senate. There were two types of meetings practised: silentium, in which only magistrates currently in office participated and conventus, in which all syncletics (Greek: συγκλητικοί, senators) could participate. The Senate in Constantinople existed until at least the beginning of the 13th century, its last known act being the election of Nicolas Canabus as emperor in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade.[/QUOTE]

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