in general, denotes a member of some senate.

The dignity of a Roman senator could not be supported without the possession of eighty thousand sesterces, or about L7000 English money; and therefore such as squandered away their money, and reduced their fortune below this sum, were generally struck out of the list of senators. This regulation was not made in the first ages of the republic, when the Romans boasted of their poverty. The senators were not permitted to be of any trade or profession. They were distinguished from the rest of the people by their dress. They wore the laticlave, half-boots of a black colour, with a crescent or silver buckle in the form of a C; but this last honour was confined only to the descendants of those hundred senators who had been elected by Romulus, as the letter C seems to imply.

Among us, senator is a member of parliament. In the laws of Edward the Confessor, we are told that the Britons called those senators whom the Saxons called afterwards aldermen and borough-masters, though not on account of their age, but their wisdom; for some of them were young men, but very well skilled in the laws. Kemulph king of the Mercians granted a charter, which ran thus: Consilio et consensu episcoporum et senatorum gentis sua largitus est dicto monasterio, &c. In Scotland the lords of session are called senators of the college of justice.