Promagistrate

A provincia was originally a task (e.g., war with Carthage) assigned to someone, sometimes with geographic boundaries; when such territories were formally annexed,^[a] the fixed geographical entity became a "province" in modern terms, but in the early and middle Republic, the "task" was most often a military command within a defined theatre of operations with unclear geographic boundaries.

Prorogation did not create a new commander or even class of general. It merely allowed a magistrate to continue performing duties beyond the expiration of the magistracy.^[4] While Livy implies that prorogation extended a magistrate's imperium, this is contradicted in that imperium was not time-limited.^[5] Cicero, for example, possessed imperium even after his governorship of Cilicia expired.^[6]

Because imperium did not expire, prorogation was simply an extension or reassignment of a commander's possession of a provincia, something feasible by senatorial decree.^[7] Previously, a provincia expired with a magistracy; prorogation severed the old tightly-linked connection between magistrate and provincia.^[8] While normally someone in the theatre or province was prorogued, one could also be prorogued by assigning a someone still possessing imperium to new provincia (as was the case with two imperatores during the Catilinarian conspiracy).^[9]

While modern scholars often suppose that prorogation was intended originally to ensure that an experienced commander with hands-on knowledge of the local situation could conclude a successful campaign, in practice the extension of command was subject to "unsteady ad-hoc politics."^[2] And "unusual political influence" was required for prorogations of longer than one year.^[10]

A Roman governor had the right, and was normally expected, to remain in his province until his successor arrived, even when he had not been prorogued. According to the lex Cornelia de maiestate, passed following Sulla's dictatorship, a governor was then required to give up his province within 30 days.^[11] A prorogued magistrate could not exercise his imperium within Rome.^[12][13]

The nature of promagisterial imperium is also complicated by its relation to the celebrating of a triumph as awarded by the Senate. Before a commander could enter the city limits (pomerium) for his triumph, he had to lay aside arms formally and ritually, that is, he had to re-enter society as a civilian.^[b] There are several early instances, however, of a commander celebrating a triumph during his two- or three-year term; it is possible that the triumph was held at the completion of his assignment and before he returned to the field with prorogued imperium.^[14]

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Roman province

Roman province

The Roman provinces were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was ruled by a Roman appointed as governor.

Theater (warfare)

Theater (warfare)

In warfare, a theater or theatre is an area in which important military events occur or are in progress. A theater can include the entirety of the airspace, land and sea area that is or that may potentially become involved in war operations.

Imperium

Imperium

In ancient Rome, imperium was a form of authority held by a citizen to control a military or governmental entity. It is distinct from auctoritas and potestas, different and generally inferior types of power in the Roman Republic and Empire. One's imperium could be over a specific military unit, or it could be over a province or territory. Individuals given such power were referred to as curule magistrates or promagistrates. These included the curule aedile, the praetor, the consul, the magister equitum, and the dictator. In a general sense, imperium was the scope of someone's power, and could include anything, such as public office, commerce, political influence, or wealth.

Catilinarian conspiracy

Catilinarian conspiracy

Catilinarian conspiracy or Catiline conspiracy may refer to:First Catilinarian conspiracy Second Catilinarian conspiracy

Catilinarian conspiracy

Catilinarian conspiracy

The Catilinarian conspiracy was an attempted coup d'état by Lucius Sergius Catilina (Catiline) to overthrow the Roman consuls of 63 BC – Marcus Tullius Cicero and Gaius Antonius Hybrida – and forcibly assume control of the state in their stead.

Roman governor

Roman governor

A Roman governor was an official either elected or appointed to be the chief administrator of Roman law throughout one or more of the many provinces constituting the Roman Empire.

Lex Cornelia de maiestate

Lex Cornelia de maiestate

The Lex Cornelia de maiestate was a Roman law passed by Sulla during his dictatorship from 81 to 80 BC using the tribune Cornelius. The law, relating to the control of governors and their forces in the provinces, stated among other things that a governor could not leave his province during his time in office, with or without his army. The law was designed to prevent both corruption and rebellion of governors, but was thwarted just four years later in 77 BC during the revolt of Lepidus, a rogue proconsul who left his province of Cisalpine Gaul with his army and marched towards Rome.

Sulla

Sulla

Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, commonly known as Sulla, was a Roman general and statesman. He won the first large-scale civil war in Roman history and became the first man of the Republic to seize power through force.

Roman triumph

Roman triumph

The Roman triumph was a civil ceremony and religious rite of ancient Rome, held to publicly celebrate and sanctify the success of a military commander who had led Roman forces to victory in the service of the state or, in some historical traditions, one who had successfully completed a foreign war.

Pomerium

Pomerium

The pomerium or pomoerium was a religious boundary around the city of Rome and cities controlled by Rome. In legal terms, Rome existed only within its pomerium; everything beyond it was simply territory (ager) belonging to Rome.

Emergence

The literary sources of Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus name a number of commanders in the early republic as proconsuls or propraetors. Modern historians believe the use of these titles is largely anachronistic and also self-contradictory, as Livy notes that that the first promagisterial appointment was in 327 BC.^[15][16] In the republic after 367 BC, only three types magistrates held imperium: dictators, consuls, and praetors. At first, the appointment of dictatores and magistri equitum filled the need for additional military commanders.^[17]

The first recorded prorogation and promagistrate was that of the consul Quintus Publilius Philo in 327 BC. The senate ordered Philo, whose consulship was about to expire, to continue to perform his military duties as he was on the verge of capturing Palaepolis (modern day Naples) and completing his provincia (assigned task). It "probably seemed imprudent to send a new consul to take over a command that would be completed within days".^[18] Livy reports that legislation was then moved by the tribunes that "when [Quintus Publilius' term expired] he should continue to manage the campaign pro consule until he should bring the war with the Greeks to an end".^[19] This innovation permitted Philo to hold the military authority and responsibility of a magistrate while not actually being one.^[20] The Romans did not seem to be too bothered by the legal innovation which occurred, as Philo's success was rewarded with a triumph even though his consulship had expired.^[1]

In the following decades, it became regular practice to prorogue consuls and prorogation of praetors started in 241 BC.^[1] During the Second and Third Samnite Wars (326–290 BC), prorogation became a regular administrative practice that allowed continuity of military command without violating the principle of annual magistracies, or increasing the number of magistrates who held imperium.^[21] In 307, Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus became the second magistrate to have his command prorogued.^[22] But in the years 296–95, several prorogations are recorded at once, including four promagistrates who were granted imperium while they were private citizens (privati). Territorial expansion and increasing militarization drove a recognition that the "emergencies" had become a continual state of affairs, and a regular system of allotting commands developed.^[23][24]

In this early period, prorogued assignments, like the dictatorship, originated as special military commands, they may at first have been limited in practice to about six months, or the length of the campaigning season.^[25]

During the Punic Wars

Commanders were often prorogued during the First Punic War (264–241 BC). During the Second Punic War, Rome started to assign private citizens both imperium (military authority) and assign them to provincia (here meaning military tasks). These privati cum imperio were unable to triumph, probably due to their lack of an official magistracy. The legal authority for this emerged directly from the sovereign powers of the Roman assemblies who were then able "to select any man[,] whether or not he had ever been elected to office[,] and make him the commander of any provincia they wished".^[26] These privati cum imperio had titles pro consule^[27] or pro praetore, in place of regular magistrates.

The first instance may have been in 215 BC after the losses at Trebia, Trasimene, and Cannae when Marcus Claudius Marcellus was elected suffect consul in the place of Lucius Postumius Albinus, deceased.^[28] However, he was forced to resign when the augurs detected flaws in his election; even so, the people passed laws to invest him with imperium and assigned him to take a consular army regardless.^[28] Some scholars and argue instead that Marcellus' just-completed praetorship meant he was just prorogued.^[28]

The clearest instance is in the assignment of Publius Cornelius Scipio (later Africanus) to Spain in 211 BC before he had held any magistracy. After the deaths of his father and uncle in Spain, no consul or praetor wanted to take up the province. The people invested Scipio with the command and the necessary imperium and auspicium militiae regardless.^[29] After Scipio's victory in 206 BC, two more privati cum imperio were dispatched to the peninsula, which continued under such command until the creation of two new praetors in 197 BC made it possible to send annual magistrates.^[30] Generally, prorogation became almost the norm for the provinciae of Sicily, Sardinia, Hispania, and the naval fleets due to the lack of sufficient annual magistrates.^[31]

The expansion of promagistracies shattering the connection between military command and magisterial office, allowing any aristocrat so empowered by law the power to exercise military authority without any official status within the city's normal civilian government.^[30] Another impact of this wartime expedience was separating "magisterial precedence" from the magistracy itself, creating something akin to a military rank, evident in the jockeying of magistrates over the specific status of their prorogation: eg, desire to attain the more prestigious pro consule status.^[32][33] The close of the wartime crisis and the return of annual governors also dampened the length of prorogations, allowing the senate to regain more granular control over provincial assignments.^[34]

At the beginning, there were two distinct forms of prorogation – per T. Corey Brennan's Praetorship in the Roman republic – a prorogatio before the people to determine whether a provincial command should be extended and a propagatio from the senate in other cases.^[3] But by the 190s BC, the senate stopped submitting decisions on prorogation of permanent provinciae to the people for ratification and eventually all extensions of imperium were called prorogatio.^[35][36] After this point, the term prorogatio became a misnomer, since no rogatio (consultation of the people) was involved.^[37] This likely emerged because the decision of whether to send commanders had been replaced to the question of who should be sent, and therefore became a routine staffing decision.^[35]

In the late republic

The promagistrates take on a new importance with the annexation of Macedonia and the Roman province of Africa in 146 BC. The number of praetors was not increased even though the two new territories were organized as praetorian provinces. For the first time since the 170s, it became impossible for sitting magistrates to govern all the permanent praetorian provinciae, which now numbered eight.^[c] This point marks the beginning of the era of the so-called "Roman governor", a post for which there is no single word in the Republic. Promagistracies became fully institutionalised, and even the praetor urbanus was sometimes prorogued. Due to the lack of replacement magistrates, governors with established territorial provinces had their tenures increased.^[39] The addition of the wealthy Asian province in 133 BC as a bequest of Attalus III put further pressure on the system, again without increasing the number of praetorships:

The senate evidently placed a premium on controlling competition for the consulship, and chose to neglect the rapidly accelerating erosion of a fundamental Republican constitutional principle — the annual magistracy — as well as to ignore the added inconvenience to commanders and possible danger to provincials... The members of the senate had lost serious interest in maintaining a working administrative scheme for Rome's growing empire.^[40]

In one major administrative development for which the career of Marius offers the clearest evidence, praetors now needed to remain in Rome to preside over increased activity in the criminal courts; only after their term were praetors regularly assigned to a province as proconsul or propraetor.^[10][41] The scale of Roman military commitments in annexed territories during the late republic required regular prorogation, since the number of magistrates and ex-magistrates who were both able commanders and willing to accept provincial governorships did not increase proportionally. Emergency grants of imperium in the field during the Social War (91–87 BC) made the granting of extra-magisterial command routine. When Sulla assumed the dictatorship in late 82 BC, the territorial provinces alone numbered ten, with possibly six permanent courts to be presided over in the city.^[42]

The rise of popularis political tactics from the time of Gaius Marius forward also coincided with the creation of "super provinciae", "massive commands in which multiple permanent provinces were incorporated into a single consular provincial assignment" with "proportionately larger military and financial resources".^[43] Pompey, for example, declined a province after his consulship in 70 BC until he was able to convince a friendly tribune to create an enormous command against the pirates in consequence of the lex Gabinia in 67 BC and, then, a similarly vast eastern command during the Third Mithridatic War the next year.^[44] These super-provinces were traditional in the sense that they were meant to defeat some particular enemy, but the scale of the campaign and the concentration of power under a single commander was unprecedented.^[45] The fixed multi-year terms of those campaigns also were unheard of in the earlier Republic; their length detracted from the Senate's de facto powers to assign provinces and control the ambition of its members by splitting both the proceeds and glory of single campaigns between multiple commanders.^[46]

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Livy

Livy

Titus Livius, known in English as Livy, was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled Ab Urbe Condita, ''From the Founding of the City'', covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in 753 BC through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own lifetime. He was on familiar terms with members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and a friend of Augustus, whose young grandnephew, the future emperor Claudius, he exhorted to take up the writing of history.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Emperor Augustus. His literary style was atticistic – imitating Classical Attic Greek in its prime.

Naples

Naples

Naples is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's administrative limits as of 2022. Its province-level municipality is the third-most populous metropolitan city in Italy with a population of 3,115,320 residents, and its metropolitan area stretches beyond the boundaries of the city wall for approximately 20 miles.

Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus

Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus

Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus, son of Marcus Fabius Ambustus, of the patrician Fabii of ancient Rome, was five times consul and a hero of the Samnite Wars. He was brother to Marcus Fabius Ambustus.

First Punic War

First Punic War

The First Punic War was the first of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the early 3rd century BC. For 23 years, in the longest continuous conflict and greatest naval war of antiquity, the two powers struggled for supremacy. The war was fought primarily on the Mediterranean island of Sicily and its surrounding waters, and also in North Africa. After immense losses on both sides, the Carthaginians were defeated.

Battle of the Trebia

Battle of the Trebia

The Battle of the Trebia was the first major battle of the Second Punic War, fought between the Carthaginian forces of Hannibal and a Roman army under Sempronius Longus on 22 or 23 December 218 BC. It took place on the flood plain of the west bank of the lower Trebia River, not far from the settlement of Placentia, and resulted in a heavy defeat for the Romans.

Battle of Lake Trasimene

Battle of Lake Trasimene

The Battle of Lake Trasimene was fought when a Carthaginian force under Hannibal ambushed a Roman army commanded by Gaius Flaminius on 21 June 217 BC, during the Second Punic War. The battle took place on the north shore of Lake Trasimene, to the south of Cortona, and resulted in a heavy defeat for the Romans. War had broken out between Rome and Carthage early in 218 BC. Hannibal, ruler of the Carthaginian territories in south-east Iberia, marched an army through Gaul, crossed the Alps and arrived in Cisalpine Gaul later that year. The Romans rushed reinforcements north from Sicily but were badly defeated at the Battle of the Trebia.

Battle of Cannae

Battle of Cannae

The Battle of Cannae was a key engagement of the Second Punic War between the Roman Republic and Carthage, fought on 2 August 216 BC near the ancient village of Cannae in Apulia, southeast Italy. The Carthaginians and their allies, led by Hannibal, surrounded and practically annihilated a larger Roman and Italian army under the consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro. It is regarded as one of the greatest tactical feats in military history and one of the worst defeats in Roman history.

Marcus Claudius Marcellus

Marcus Claudius Marcellus

Marcus Claudius Marcellus, five times elected as consul of the Roman Republic, was an important Roman military leader during the Gallic War of 225 BC and the Second Punic War. Marcellus gained the most prestigious award a Roman general could earn, the spolia opima, for killing the Gallic military leader and king Viridomarus in single combat in 222 BC at the Battle of Clastidium. Furthermore, he is noted for having conquered the fortified city of Syracuse in a protracted siege during which Archimedes, the famous mathematician, scientist, and inventor, was killed, despite Marcellus ordering the soldiers not to harm him. Marcus Claudius Marcellus died in battle in 208 BC, leaving behind a legacy of military conquests and a reinvigorated Roman legend of the spolia opima.

Lucius Postumius Albinus (consul 234 BC)

Lucius Postumius Albinus (consul 234 BC)

Lucius Postumius Albinus was a Roman politician and general of the 3rd century BC who was elected consul three times. Most of our knowledge about his career and his demise comes from Livy's Ab Urbe Condita.

Augur

Augur

An augur was a priest and official in the classical Roman world. His main role was the practice of augury, the interpretation of the will of the gods by studying events he observed within a predetermined sacred space (templum). The templum corresponded to the heavenly space above. The augur's decisions were based on what he personally saw or heard from within the templum; they included thunder, lightning and any accidental signs such as falling objects, but in particular, birdsigns; whether the birds he saw flew in groups or alone, what noises they made as they flew, the direction of flight, what kind of birds they were, how many there were, or how they fed. This practice was known as "taking the auspices". As circumstance did not always favour the convenient appearance of wild birds or weather phenomena, domesticated chickens kept for the purpose were sometimes released into the templum, where their behaviour, particularly how they fed, could be studied by the augur.

Hispania

Hispania

Hispania was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula and its provinces. Under the Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior. During the Principate, Hispania Ulterior was divided into two new provinces, Baetica and Lusitania, while Hispania Citerior was renamed Hispania Tarraconensis. Subsequently, the western part of Tarraconensis was split off, first as Hispania Nova, later renamed "Callaecia". From Diocletian's Tetrarchy onwards, the south of the remainder of Tarraconensis was again split off as Carthaginensis, and all of the mainland Hispanic provinces, along with the Balearic Islands and the North African province of Mauretania Tingitana, were later grouped into a civil diocese headed by a vicarius. The name Hispania was also used in the period of Visigothic rule.

Marble bust of a person that is traditionally identified to be Lucius Licinius Lucullus. Lucullus was quaestor in 87 BC under Sulla and acted pro quaestore campaigning in the East all the way until 80 BC.^[47]

Proconsul

Propraetor

A propraetor was a form of promagistrate, as the name implies, acting in place of a praetor. Initially, praetors who were prorogued continued to act pro praetore after their terms, but through the second century, prorogued praetors started to be titled the more prestigious pro consule instead. After the time of Sulla, all governors were prorogued pro consule.^[48] One of the few exceptions to this rule was a senatorial snub against Octavian in 43 BC when he was vested with imperium and prorogued pro praetore, putting him lower in status than all other promagistrates.^[49]

If a governor died in office, it was normal for his quaestor to assume command pro praetore. It also became normal for legates during the late republic to be titled pro praetore if they were themselves vested with imperium. Pompey, for example, received such legates during the campaign against the pirates in consequence of the lex Gabinia. During the imperial period, the legates of the emperor were titled pro praetore, consistent with late republican practice; the quaestors and legates of the public provinces were by this period similarly granted praetorian imperium and likewise titled pro praetore.^[50]

Proquaestor

A proquaestor was person who took up the administrative duties normally adopted by a quaestor. This was normally done in the absence of a questor, usually by death or resignation. In such cases, a governor normally named a member of his staff: for example, Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella named Gaius Verres to serve pro quaestore in 80 BC.^[51] At other times, ex-quaestors were sent or kept as proquaestor to act as someone's quaestor. But more extraordinarily, in the absence of sufficient governors or to complete some specific task, an ex-quaestor could be sent as a governor with the title pro quaestor pro praetore.^[52] For example, Marcus Porcius Cato was dispatched to Cyprus pro quaestore pro praetore to handle the annexation of the island.^[53]

Procurator

The title procurator is not related to prorogation and is not a promagistracy. Procurators were originally agents of rich men, later of the emperor, who acted on his patron's behalf with regard to financial matters.

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Lucullus

Lucullus

Lucius Licinius Lucullus was a Roman general and statesman, closely connected with Lucius Cornelius Sulla. In culmination of over 20 years of almost continuous military and government service, he conquered the eastern kingdoms in the course of the Third Mithridatic War, exhibiting extraordinary generalship in diverse situations, most famously during the Siege of Cyzicus in 73–72 BC, and at the Battle of Tigranocerta in Armenian Arzanene in 69 BC. His command style received unusually favourable attention from ancient military experts, and his campaigns appear to have been studied as examples of skillful generalship.

Proconsul

Proconsul

A proconsul was an official of ancient Rome who acted on behalf of a consul. A proconsul was typically a former consul. The term is also used in recent history for officials with delegated authority.

Augustus

Augustus

Caesar Augustus, also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Principate, which is the first phase of the Roman Empire, and is considered one of the greatest leaders in human history. The reign of Augustus initiated an imperial cult as well as an era associated with imperial peace, the Pax Romana or Pax Augusta. The Roman world was largely free from large-scale conflict for more than two centuries despite continuous wars of imperial expansion on the empire's frontiers and the year-long civil war known as the "Year of the Four Emperors" over the imperial succession.

Lex Gabinia de piratis persequendis

Lex Gabinia de piratis persequendis

The lex Gabinia, lex de uno imperatore contra praedones instituendo or lex de piratis persequendis was an ancient Roman special law passed in 67 BC, which granted Pompey the Great proconsular powers in any province within 50 miles of the Mediterranean Sea without holding a properly elected magistracy for the purpose of combating piracy. It also gave Pompey the power to appoint many legates and significant financial resources. The law was proposed and passed by the tribune Aulus Gabinius.

Legatus Augusti pro praetore

Legatus Augusti pro praetore

A legatus Augusti pro praetore was the official title of the governor or general of some Imperial provinces of the Roman Empire during the Principate era, normally the larger ones or those where legions were based. Provinces were denoted imperial if their governor was selected by the emperor, in contrast to senatorial provinces, whose governors were elected by the Roman Senate.

Quaestor

Quaestor

A quaestor was a public official in Ancient Rome. There were various types of quaestors, with the title used to describe greatly different offices at different times.

Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella

Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella

Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella was a consul of the Roman Republic in 81 BC, with Marcus Tullius Decula, during the dictatorship of Sulla.

Gaius Verres

Gaius Verres

Gaius Verres was a Roman magistrate, notorious for his misgovernment of Sicily. His extortion of local farmers and plundering of temples led to his prosecution by Cicero, whose accusations were so devastating that his defence advocate could only recommend that Verres should leave the country. Cicero's prosecution speeches were later published as the Verrine Orations.

Procurator (ancient Rome)

Procurator (ancient Rome)

Procurator was a title of certain officials in ancient Rome who were in charge of the financial affairs of a province, or imperial governor of a minor province.