How many roman members were there in the roman senate and were they all men?

Answer 1

The senate was created by Romulus, the founder of Rome and its first king, as a royal advisory body in the mid-8th century BC. This was a council of elders (senate comes from senex, the Latin for old man). He selected 100 patres familias (heads of the family/ household) from the leading clans of Rome at the time to sit in the senate. This assured participation and consensus to his rule by the rich and powerful. These clans soon developed into the aristocracy (patricians). The 5th king of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, was said to have doubled the size of the senate to 200 members in the late 7th century BC/ early 6th century BC.

With the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the Roman Republic, the senate remained an (unelected) advisory body, but for the consuls, the two annually elected heads of the Republic. Over time the membership of the senate became a mixture of patricians and former senior officers of state (consuls, praetors and censors). In 82 BC Lucius Cornelius Sulla also included former junior officers of state (aediles and quaestors) in the senate. This doubled the size of the senate to 300. Therefore, at some unrecorded prior time the senate must have had 150 members. Sula also replaced the old senate house (the Curia Hostilia) with a new larger one (the Curia Conelia) to accommodate the larger size of the senate.

Julius Caesar increased the size of the senate by 1/3, to 900 and built a new senate house, the Curia Julia in the 40s BC. Augustus brought its size back to 600.

All senators were men. Women were excluded from politics and did not have the right to vote or to run for public office.