Acta Senatus

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Acta Senatus, or Commentarii Senatus, are minutes of the discussions and decisions of the Roman Senate. Before the first consulship of Julius Caesar (59 BC), minutes of the proceedings of the Senate were written and occasionally published, but unofficially; Caesar, desiring to tear away the veil of mystery which gave an unreal importance to the Senate's deliberations, first ordered them to be recorded and issued authoritatively in the Acta Diurna. The keeping of them was continued by Augustus, but their publication was forbidden (Suetonius, Augustus, 36). A young senator (ab actis senatus) was chosen to draw up these acta, which were kept in the imperial archives and public libraries (Tacitus, Ann. v. 4). Special permission from the city prefect was necessary in order to examine them.

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• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.