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en-wikipedia-org-8804		Roman Senate - Wikipedia			.html	text/html	5470	665	63	The Roman Senate (Latin: Senātus Rōmānus) was a governing and advisory assembly in ancient Rome. The early Roman family was called a gens or "clan",[2] and each clan was an aggregation of families under a common living male patriarch, called a pater (the Latin word for "father").[4] When the early Roman gentes were aggregating to form a common community, the patres from the leading clans were selected[5] for the confederated board of elders that would become the Roman senate.[4] Over time, the patres came to recognize the need for a single leader, and so they elected a king (rex),[4] and vested in him their sovereign power.[6] When the king died, that sovereign power naturally reverted to the patres.[4] The senate of the Roman Kingdom held three principal responsibilities: It functioned as the ultimate repository for the executive power,[10] it served as the king's council, and it functioned as a legislative body in concert with the people of Rome.[11] During the years of the monarchy, the senate's most important function was to elect new kings. Senate of the Roman Republic[edit] Senate of the Roman Empire[edit]	./cache/en-wikipedia-org-8804.html	./txt/en-wikipedia-org-8804.txt