Praetorian Guard Praefects

[Pseudo123]

Hi everybody.

 

Do you know any good reference about the Preafects of thr Preatorian Guard during the High Roman Empire ? Ia m not interested into the biography of each preafects but rather the role all over the High Empire of these men.

I've been looking for such documents, but I found little evidence ...

 

Thanks.

[Novosedoff]

Welcome to the forum.

A few attempts that I made here to get the answers were a bit waste of time because the forum doesn't have many participants, esp. for tricky questions 🙂

Anyway, if I were you, I would have checked the references from the below wiki article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praetorian_Guard

You may also want to ask your question on Quora because it has there more visitors and also a few Roman history groups.

But hopefully you'll have more luck here.

     

[caldrail]

Strictly speaking a Praefectus of the Cohortes Praetoriae did not have a role encompassing the Empire, he was commander of a bodyguard in Rome, though individuals were used as spies and a detachment of Praetorians would usually follow the Imperator when he journeyed - but then many of these leaders never left Rome anyway.

The Praetorians are often blamed for unstable rule, not without good reason, but in most cases it wasn't the soldiers themselves, but rather the Prefect who had close contact with elite men in Rome who was instrumental in court intrigue. The face-off of Praetorians against the Senate that got Claudius in power, or the auction that did the same for Didius Julianus are obvious exceptions.

Please note that the wiki article is incorrect. The Praetorians did not exist in the Late Republic, it was Augustus who formed them from all the bodyguard units left over from the civil wars, and the Urban cohorts were made from Praetorians with their own Prefect who doesn't figure in the historical record much, I can only think of the takeover immediately after the death of Caligula which the Praetorians overturned.

[Novosedoff]

On 1/19/2022 at 6:12 PM, caldrail said:

though individuals were used as spies and a detachment of Praetorians would usually follow the Imperator when he journeyed - but then many of these leaders never left Rome anyway.

There were different kinds of spies in the empire, incl. Frumentarii (though they appeared later under emperor Hadrian and gathered mostly the military intelligence, not political).  Overall Roman spies were pretty good ones: it's enough to recall that Romans sacked the Persian capital 5 times, whereas Persians could never approach Rome. Augustus used Praetorians in rather limited way as personal bodyguards for his palace in Rome (that job doesn't require brains, only muscles). The first Praetorian prefect who started to exhibit a lot of political power was Sejanus under emperor Tiberius. Tiberius mostly lived outside Rome after 27AD, so Sejanus became so powerful he could even push his protege and his agenda to the Roman Senate, he even became a consul and so a chairman  of the Senate (this is also when the Praetorian service became of high prestige for silver-spoon kids of the Roman elite). Ironically the story of Praetorians ends with the rise of emperor Constantine. As far as I am aware, some folks even link Praetorians with the rise of Mithraism though I never came across any evidence to support that claim. Any locations, where Praetorians were stationed over the course of 3 centuries, could shed some light on that. 

 

The following article actually contains the names of the Praetorian prefects (to my surprise)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praetorian_prefect?wprov=sfla1

 

Edited January 20, 2022 by Novosedoff

[guy]

20 hours ago, Novosedoff said:

As far as I am aware, some folks even link Praetorians with the rise of Mithraism though I never came across any evidence to support that claim. 

Interesting point. I found this quote:

Quote

”The earliest monument showing Mithras slaying the bull thought to have been found in Rome bears an inscription that tells us it was dedicated by a certain Alcimus, steward of T. Claudius Livianus, commander of the Praetorian guard in 101 CE.”

https://ancientimes.blogspot.com/2020/08/roman-mithraism.html?m=1

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1805-0703-270

•  

Quote

 

• Inscription content: On the base: ALCIMVS · TI · CL · LIVIANI · SER VILC · SOL · M · [V · S] · D D On the back: ALCIMVS TI CL LIVIANI SER VILC S M V S D D
• Inscription transliteration: On the base: Alcimus Ti(berii) Cl(audii) Liviani ser(vus) vil(i)c(us) Sol(i) M(ithrae) v(otum) s(olvit) d(onum) d(edit) On the back: Alcimus Ti(berii) Cl(audii) Livinai ser(vus) vil(i)c(us) s(oli) M(ithrae) v(oto) s(oluto) d(onum) d(edit)
• Inscription translation: On the base: Alcimus, slave and bailiff of Tiberius Claudius Livianus, gave this as a gift to the sun-god Mithras in fulfilment of a vow On the back of the bull: Alcimus, slave baliff of Tiberius Claudius Livianus, gave the gift to the sun-god Mithras, in the fulfilment of a vow.
• Inscription note: Repeated in shortened form on the back of the bull.

Curator's comments

Cook 2011, nr. 19:
A group of Mithras sacrificing a bull, with an inscription naming Tiberius Claudius Livianus as the owner of the slave who dedicated it.

 

Edited January 20, 2022 by guy

[Novosedoff]

4 hours ago, guy said:

”The earliest monument showing Mithras slaying the bull thought to have been found in Rome bears an inscription that tells us it was dedicated by a certain Alcimus, steward of T. Claudius Livianus, commander of the Praetorian guard in 101 CE.”

It appears that there is also a Mithraeum built by Praetorians on Andros (island) to honour Septimius Severus and his sons (WTF did Praetorians do on a island?)

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20180912

Edited January 20, 2022 by Novosedoff

[Novosedoff]

5 hours ago, guy said:

Interesting point. I found this quote:

There is a retired American professor who is very knowledgeable on the subject of Mithraism.
His name is Luther H. Martin, he's emeritus professor of the University of Vermont.
I happen to know him only briefly because he is the one who introduced to Rodney Stark's books 
(and the Stark's books did strike me a lot), Prof. Martin was also kind enough to share with me a few chapters
from his yet unpublished book. Here is his page on academia.edu, which I follow
https://vermont.academia.edu/LutherHMartin

We can ask him for more evidence on Praetorian link to Mithraism. I am sure he must know.

[caldrail]

About Roman spies? There's a lot of hype on the internet about this. They relied on informers, first and foremost. Deserters and local people were just as important in terms of information as anything more formal.

The Frumentarii were not an intelligence class or agency, they were grain merchants whose wide ranging contacts put them in a unique position to pass on rumours and intelligence, and were co-opted as spies at one point though never formally so. They were eventually replaced in this role by the custom created Agentes In Rebus, a real bona fide intelligence service (as far as I know, the first ever)

Peregrinii were not a formal spies either, because the word simply describes foreigners, though as an intelligence source may have been useful from time to time.

Exploratores were legionaries used as scouts, though sometimes they did covert activity mostly of a military nature. They were not seperate units though formations of them sometimes persisted.

Speculares were legionaries used as spies, deliberately, tasked with intelligence gathering as required.

[Novosedoff]

1 hour ago, caldrail said:

Deserters and local people were just as important in terms of information as anything more formal.

Absolutely. Jews and Christians were populous both in Persia and the Roman empire as well.

1 hour ago, caldrail said:

They were eventually replaced in this role by the custom created Agentes In Rebus, a real bona fide intelligence service (as far as I know, the first ever

That's interesting. Thanks for mentioning. However the wiki says that they appeared in the 4th century AD, so it seems the very high Roman empire 🙂

[Novosedoff]

It is quite interesting to notice that the same Praetorian guards seemingly had the direct relation not only to the Mithraic cult, but apparently also to the very foundations of the "official" Christian religion (see attached 2 pages from an old book by a Britishman). Although when we recall the fact that the Praetorians bodyguarded Roman emperors and reported to them on all matters of interest, while Roman emperors would normally also take the chief religious position of the Pontifex Maximus, such involvement of Praetorians in all religious cults would seem quite natural.

If Praetorians even managed to get their names recorded in the very early Christian documents (like Acts of the Apostles etc), we can imagine the degree of their influence in shaping the future world #1 religion.  

 

Edited August 7, 2022 by Novosedoff