do people like to imagine this? maybe cicero stans do but when i think about representations of the SENATVS in film and TV, the gestalt I have picked up is of a bunch of fat old men in togas barking and laughing (clearly modelled on the British parliament) while someone stands in front trying to put on a show of emotionally manipulating his clearly tender audience while actually putting on a show of how he has manoeuvred all of them through force, blackmail and cunning
though speaking of British style representations of the SENATVS, it is very strange how nobody ever ever ever depicts the curia they are sitting in as being one of the two purpose built curiae with rows of benches and an aisle in the middle, but they always always use the temporary round pompeian curia. this is understandable for a dramatic production because it was a literal theatre, and the central act of any drama about the late republican period is the murder of caesar, which did take place in the pompeian curia….but STILL…