Here are five key moments from the appearance by the 68-year-old leftist leader, Brazil's first female president.
She is accused of illegally covering up budget holes by taking unauthorized state loans, but says the charges are trumped up in what amounts to a coup d'etat.
RESISTANCE WARRIOR
Rousseff recalled being tortured by Brazil's military dictatorship in the 1970s and her battle with cancer in 2009.
"I was afraid of death, of the consequences of the torture that I bore in my body, in my soul. But I did not give in. I resisted," she said.
"Twice I saw death close up," she said. "Today I only fear for the death of democracy."
CELEBRITY SUPPORT
Rousseff's supporters in the chamber included her once hugely popular predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Brazilian singer and heartthrob Chico Buarque.
A few hundred protesters rallied outside the Senate in Rousseff's support, with flowers and flags.
As she arrived smiling at the Senate, supporters chanted: "Dilma, warrior of the Brazilian homeland!"
'FAKING IT'
But in the Senate, Rousseff faced stern questions from rivals out to impeach her.
"You cast yourself as the victim of a coup, but we know very well what this is. We are working to rebuild democracy," said Senator Aloysio Nunes.
"If you faked the state accounts, now you are also faking the story of this trial."
SOCIAL JUSTICE
Rousseff cast herself as a defender of the poor. She said center-right reforms planned by her likely successor Michel Temer threatened to undo her social-welfare achievements.
"What is at stake are the gains of the past 13 years -- the gains of the poorest people," she said.
She cited gains in "child protection, young people going to university and technical colleges, the value of the minimum wage."
ECONOMIC STRUGGLE
Rousseff accused her rivals in Congress of blocking her efforts to fix the economy in order to topple her.
But Senator Simone Tebet of Temer's PMDB party accused her of worsening the economic crisis.
"You spent what you had and what you did not have," Tebet said.
"You sold Brazil an unreal Brazil. The unreal numbers led to a loss of confidence among Brazilians and we are facing the worst financial crisis in our country's history."
Note
Suspended President Dilma Rousseff appeared before Brazil's Senate on Monday Aug 29,2016 to defend herself from charges of breaking budget laws in an impeachment trial that is expected to remove her from office this week.
Senators will question Rousseff in a session expected to last all day. They are then due to vote late on Tuesday or early Wednesday on whether to convict Rousseff and remove her from office.
If she is dismissed, interim President Michel Temer would officially take over as Brazil's leader to serve out the remainder of the presidential term through 2018.
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