In Roman antiquity, the Praetorian Guard was a unit of the Roman army made up of elite soldiers initially recruited in Italy. These units derive their origin from the small group of men surrounding the Republican magistrates known as praetors and their name from the camp of the Roman legions where the tent of the commander of the legion, the praetorium (Latin:prætorium) was erected. , when they went on campaign. It is one of the most famous military units in Roman history.
Under the Roman Republic
During the Roman Republic there was no permanent guard responsible for the protection of general officers. But some officers chose to surround themselves with a guard of soldiers to ensure their safety, giving rise to the first "praetorian guards". In case of battle, they intervene as a last reserve. The consuls were usually protected by the lictors, who also settled near their army tents.
At the siege of Numantia, Scipio Emilian had thus formed a troop of five hundred men for his personal protection, the exits of the besieged being sometimes very dangerous. This practice then spread, with Roman generals occupying this office for longer and longer periods. This guard was then called cohors prætoria.
Under the Empire
The praetorians constitute the close guard of the emperor, and part of the garrison of Rome. They are directed, according to the times, by one, two, or four prefects of the praetorium and obviously by the emperor himself. Until Vespasian, the prefect of the Praetorium was always a knight, and this office was the highest of the equestrian order.
They derive several advantages from their proximity to the emperor:the Praetorians are the only ones to be admitted in arms to the sacred enclosure of Rome - the pomœrium -; their obligatory service time is shorter (16 years instead of 25), and their pay is higher than that of a legionnaire. Under Nero, the pay of a praetorian was three and a half times that of a legionary, increased by the bonuses of donativum, granted by the new emperors. It was a bonus equivalent to several years of pay, renewed during important events of the empire, or affecting the imperial family:birthdays, births, weddings. Large distributions of money and food renewed and rewarded the loyalty of the praetorians after the failure of each particularly serious plot (such as that of Messalina against Claudius in 48 or of Pison against Nero in 65). Feared and dreaded by the population and the Senate, the Praetorians enjoyed no sympathy in Rome. A famous verse by Juvénal evokes the nail left in his foot by the sandal of a praetorian in a hurry... The term "praetorian" retains a pejorative meaning in French, a legacy of the often troubled role of the ancient Praetorium. P>
Praetorian prefect
The Praetorian Prefect is the head of the Praetorian Guard. His key position (leader of all the troops stationed in Rome) made him a key figure in the Roman state.
There are usually two prefects, sometimes only one (as under Tiberius). Collegiality makes it possible to diminish the powers of the prefects of the praetorium, who otherwise would have been real viceroys.
After the dissolution of the praetorian cohorts by Constantine the Great (after the defeat of the praetorians at Pont-Milvius in 312) the praetorian prefecture was no more than an administrative function in the Empire:its holder ruled vast territories (named prefecture of the praetorium) grouping dioceses, in the name of the emperor.
Organization[edit]
Infantry Cohorts
Gradually, with the crisis of the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Empire, the informal detachment became permanent and its numbers increased to form the Praetorian Guard as we know it. Augustus created 9 cohorts (4500 men, the equivalent of a legion) to keep the peace in Italy, three were stationed in Rome, the others nearby. Auguste conceives of them as infantry units of 500 men each.
From 2 AD until 27, there were two prefects of the praetorium, then only one under Tiberius, the guard having entirely installed its quarters inside the City. The palace service cohort takes its word from the emperor and not from the praetorian prefect. Their camp was located on Mount Quirinal from Tiberius, outside Rome. It is to Sejanus, prefect of the praetorium and favorite of the Emperor Tiberius, that the reunion of the urban cohorts and the nine praetorians until then dispersed in Italy in a single and vast camp located beyond the Servian wall is due. , on the plateau of the Esquilies, the Castra Praetoria, at the gates of Rome from 26. Sejanus found that the accommodation in town, which had been theirs until then, softened them; he could not have been completely wrong because in the various wars between pretenders to the Empire, they were quite regularly beaten by the frontier legions, certainly more seasoned; they almost always take the side of the emperor installed in Rome against the suitor arriving from the provinces. Until Tiberius, to enter the praetorian cohorts, one had to be born in Latium, Umbria or Etruria, at most in some old colony.
Under Caligula, between 37 and 41, the praetorian cohorts increased from 9 to 12. Out of fear and demagoguery towards the praetorian cohorts, Vitellius recruited and the cohorts increased to 16 in number, ie 16,000 men and these became soldiers. Vespasian, always wise and prudent, reduces the strength of each unit to five hundred men and retains only nine cohorts. Domitian creates a tenth and these numbers do not change.
At the beginning of the 2nd century, there were still 89% Italians there. Under Septimius Severus, recruitment evolved to allow the inclusion of legionnaires from the Roman armies, such as those from the army of the Danube, who were very valiant; in fact, Septimius Severus puts there his supporters who arrived with him in Rome, the Praetorians having remained faithful to his competitors.
Cavalry
From its creation, the guard included, like a legion, a detachment of cavalry, the equites singulares Augusti, responsible for escorting the emperor during his travels or during military campaigns. These horsemen are mainly provincials chosen to be particularly reliable, wearing the costume of their native people and equipped with their own weapons. Trajan increases its numbers, opens recruitment to Roman citizens and makes it a permanent unit of the Praetorian Guard. Its numbers vary between that of an ala quingenaria, i.e. 512 horsemen divided into 16 turmes. They are commanded by a tribune. Sévère doubles its numbers to give it the same numbers as the other cohorts.
It is confined to the Lateran.
Disappearance
During the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (October 28, 312), the Praetorian Guard, which was part of the army of Maxentius, was almost annihilated:it drowned with Maxentius and many others by falling into the Tiber. Rather than reconstituting it with his own soldiers, Constantine I prefers to dissolve the Praetorian Guard after his accession to power, thus ending what was considered to be one of the main sources of instability in the regime; reputation perhaps excessive because, apart from the crises of 68-69 and 192, it remained faithful most of the time to the emperor in place against the self-proclaimed usurpers. He also happened to rid Rome of insufferable emperors like Heliogabalus, or simply not defend them at the decisive moment.
Political role
The cohorts intervened on several occasions in the struggles for the imperial succession. In 41, led to the castra prætoria from the Palatine, Claudius was the first emperor proclaimed there by the praetorians, and the first to promise them a donativum in exchange (this in January 41).
When Nero died in 68-69, they supported Galba, an austere and traditionalist character, because their prefect had promised them a large sum of money. But when Galba refuses to pay them the amount due because, he says, "he used to recruit soldiers and not buy them", the praetorians abandon him. they proclaimed Othon emperor, on the forum and slaughtered in the same place the old emperor Galba and his designated successor, the young Pison (January 15, 69). After Otto's defeat and suicide, they follow the victor, another Neronian, Vitellius, whom they have fought before.
During the assassination of Domitian in 96, they demanded from the new emperor Nerva the punishment of the culprits; in front of their threat to resort to violence, the latter had to yield to them in spite of himself, and the tyrannicides were put to death. In the year 193, after the assassinations of Commodus and Pertinax, the praetorians literally put the empire up for auction:it was the biggest payer, the senator Didius Julianus, who won the lot and was proclaimed emperor, for a brief reign. by the way.
Deprived of its own troops, the Senate had no other solution each time than to bow before the choice of the praetorians, like that of the legions. The new emperor was always acclaimed by the Praetorians before being ratified by the Senate and the legions of the provinces. Anyone who refused or neglected to pay the substantial donativum ran the risk of paying for it with his life, like Galba or Pertinax. The founder of the Antonine dynasty, Nerva, only calmed the reluctance of the praetorians at the cost of a particularly large donativum.