in Roman antiquity, those senators who signified their votes by their feet, not with their tongues; that is, such as walked over to the side of those whose opinion they approved of, in divisions of the senate.

Dr Middleton thus accounts for the origin of the word. He says, that though the magistrates of Rome had a right to a place and vote in the senate both during their office and after it, and before they were put upon the roll by the censors, yet they had not probably a right to speak or debate there on any question, at least in the earlier ages of the republic. For this seems to have been the original distinction between them and the ancient senators, as it is plainly intimated in the formule of the consular edict, sent abroad to summon the senate, which was addressed to all senators, and to all those who had a right to vote in the senate. From this distinction, those who had only a right to vote were called in ridicule pedarian; because they signified their votes by their feet, not their tongues, and upon every division of the senate, went over to the side of those whose opinion, they approved. It was in allusion to this old custom, which seems to have been wholly dropped in the latter ages of the republic, that the mute part of the senate continued still to be called by the name of pedarians, as Cicero informs us, who in giving an account to Atticus of a certain debate and decree of the senate upon it, says that it was made with the eager and general concurrence of the pedarians, though against the authority of all the confulsars.