Intelligence Service

[Guest Ambiorix]

Did the romans allready had an organisation like secret services nowadays?

I allways heared the Vatican was the first nation to do this, but it seems obvious to me that the romans had such a system too

[Primus Pilus]

A similar thread...

 

Roman Special Troops

 

I suppose the Praetorians would be the closest thing to an organized unit dedicated to the protection of a leader.

[Favonius Cornelius]

During the reigns of some particular emperors such as Tiberius, a more informal group of informants would make it a business of ratting out people in order to get their estates. The accused would be convicted in treason trials and as reward the emperor often gave at least some of the estate to the informant. As you might imagine a lot of innocent people were cut down in this ugly process. The process was probably popular with some emperors because it provided a means of arbitrarily taking suspected enemies entire estates by the accusations of someone other than the emperor.

[Tobias]

Agreed. The Romans would have flashed silver around like they had an infinite supply to gain information, and information would undoubtably come in; after all, if you were a small tribe or a small nomad group or even a single lowly labourer who gained information that would benefit the most powerful force in the known world at the time, why not tell them the information? It would most definetly mean rewarding if it was accurate, and good will from the Romans in later times.