Senate-house Quotes

What reason had he then for endeavouring, with such bitter hostility, to force me into the senate yesterday? Was I the only person who was absent? Have you not repeatedly had thinner houses than yesterday? Or was a matter of such importance under discussion, that it was desirable for even sick men to be brought down? Hannibal, I suppose, was at the gates, or there was to be a debate about peace with Pyrrhus; on which occasion it is related that even the great Appius, old and blind as he was, was brought down to the senate-house. (Cicero)
What cities, as great as this, have ... promised themselves immortality Posterity can hardly trace the situation of some. The sorrowful traveller wanders over the awful ruins of others.... Here stood their citadel, but now grown over with weeds there their senate-house, but now the haunt of every noxious reptile temples and theatres stood here, now only an undistinguished heap of ruins. View quote
Oliver Goldsmith