Note 128 — XIV METHODS OF LAW-MAKING IN ROME AND IN ENGLAND (continued 2)

Though Augustus found over a thousand members in it, many of them unworthy, and was obliged to purge it carefully down to a reasonable strength (Sueton. Octav. 35). Whether there were senators with no legal right to speak but only to vote—they voted, as in the English Parliament, by dividing into two bodies—is matter of controversy. There was no closure, so senators used to talk against time.