WI Constantine I does not creates a new Senate?

in 324 AD Emperor Constantine I moved the Imperial capital intending to raise the status of his new city as capital and deprecate the importance of the "old" capital of Rome (technically Rome had ceased to be the imperial capital decades earlier but the Senate continued to meet there). The creation of the new senate among other things contributed to the gradual separation of the East and West and to the decline of the city of Rome itself.
WI Constantine I decides to retain the old Senate in Rome and doesnot create a new one? Could this have delayed or aborted the separation of East and West?
 
I doubt it, since the Senate was already pretty weak by that point anyway, and Rome was already less and less an imperial capital; Constantine's move was a symptom of the decline rather than a full cause of it.

Oh, and Constantine, as far as we can tell, simply founded a municipal senate at Constantinople. It was his son Constantius who seems to have raised it to an imperial body.
 
I agree... but the Senate in Rome was so declined that it had become a municipal body too... Constantine I might have an option not to create a new Senate but to restore powers to the old Senate and have a legislative body based in Rome and executional/adminstration carried out in "Nova Roma"... as a link to their common past...​
 
I agree... but the Senate in Rome was so declined that it had become a municipal body too... Constantine I might have an option not to create a new Senate but to restore powers to the old Senate and have a legislative body based in Rome and executional/adminstration carried out in "Nova Roma"... as a link to their common past...​

The Ancient Roman Senate was never a legislative body in any real sense. It never had power to produce legislation: in the Republic, the Tribunate served as the primary legislative body. Arguably the most important power held by the Emperor from Augustus onwards was tribunitia potestas (tribunician power), giving him the full legislative powers of the Tribunate. I doubt Constantine (or any other emperor) is going to surrender his legislative authority to the Senate (or any other body).

The basic problem is that the Senate's primary role during the imperial period was as an administrative pool. Civil magistrates tended to be drawn from the Senatorial ranks. Now, even that role had been in decline for a while by the time of Constantine: as the position of emperor increasinly came to be a trophy passed violently on from general to general, more and more of the magisterial roles previously filled by Senators were being filled by the followers and acquaintances of the current emperor. So I can see Constantine deciding his new capital doesn't need a Senate. But he's far more likely to make that choice because he feels he doesn't a Senate, period, not just because he feels he doesn't need a second one.

Either way, I doubt it's going to have much of an effect on the seperation of the eastern and western halves of the empire. The Senate was incidental to the process by that point, and the social and political realities of the late empire are going to be pushing strongly towards seperation.
 
From what I can recall, the Senate was more of a collective Executive Branch than a legislature- like a very large Supreme Council(of Elders). As SCD just said, it would be ridiculous for a Roman Emperor to surrender his Tribunal legislative powers, granted by the Assemblies, to the executive council which was losing its administrative powers anyway, and never really had legislative authority anyway.

Constantine could have wiped away the façade of a republic, and gotten rid of the senate as an administrative body- but it was too useful. It gave him a pool of ready-made rich men and military leaders from which to pick his Provincial governors. However, ridding the Empire of the nominal existence of the Assemblies, from which he derived his legislative powers, would have never gone through. At least not at that time.
 
Constantine could have wiped away the façade of a republic, and gotten rid of the senate as an administrative body- but it was too useful. It gave him a pool of ready-made rich men and military leaders from which to pick his Provincial governors.
That was already well in decline by the time of Constantine. In truth, it had been in decline since Augustus (maybe even Marius), when the military reforms started to ensure that military leaders were no longer restricted to the senatorial class. The process had been sped up rapidly by the third-century crisis, and by the time of Diocletian and Constantine the Senate was already operating as something of a fifth wheel, and emperors were increasingly inclined to choose provincial governors and fill administrative offices with members of their own entourage.

But, that being said, I agree that it's probably too early to eliminate the Senate, even if it's no longer strictly relevant to the running of the empire. The tradition is too powerful, and it took another couple hundred years before the Romans/Byzantines truly dispensed with it in name. It's more plausible that Constantine might have decided against creating a secondary Senate in Constantinople, mind you: previous emperors had established their own imperial capitals in various cities (Milan and Nicomedia, to name just two), without feeling the need to create new Senates. But Constantine wasn't just interested in creating a new administrative capital: he wanted his new city to have all the culture and prestige of Rome itself. And for that reason he needed a Senate: not because it was particularly important to the running of his empire, but because it was an issue of prestige.

However, ridding the Empire of the nominal existence of the Assemblies, from which he derived his legislative powers, would have never gone through. At least not at that time.
Agreed. It's a testament to the longevity of Roman cultural memory that they still clung to the concept of the assemblies, theoretically speaking, several hundred years after the assemblies had last actually assembled....
 
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