Changing Role and Responsibilities of the Roman Senate under Augustus

The Senate began to see Augustus as one of their own after he had won their trust, and later only after hesitations because he far outranked them in power and prestige. From this, we can see that the Senate considered Augustus a powerful ally of sorts, and Augustus needed the Senate to uphold, on the surface, the fundamental premise of Roman political thinking, since anyone of importance in the political world was a part of …

…other seeking power to put their ideas into practice, because Augustus was now the centre of power. While they could still remember the active and powerful Senate of the late republic, they also remembered the civil wars that stemmed from it, and lost the desire to continue the battle. As the old senators died out, the new senators became more and more used to having a princeps at the centre, beginning to depend on it.