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{{See also|Promagistrate}} |
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#redirect ] |
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{{Roman government}} |
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{{Rcat shell| |
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'''''Prorogatio''''' was a Roman practice in which a ]'s duties were extended beyond its normal annual term.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=213}} It developed as a response to Roman expansion's demands for more generals and governors to administer conquered territories.{{sfn|Lintott|1999|p=113}} |
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{{R from duplicated article}} |
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Prorogation created an official with no civilian authority or responsibility in Rome and allowed commanders to indefinitely, weakening the time-limited check that Romans had over their commanders.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=212}} Prorogation's permission for a commander to remain with "expert knowledge of local conditions" also helped increase the chances of victory; in the late republic, politics often motivated by the ], decided whose commands were extended.{{sfn|Pittenger|2009|p=77}} Sometimes men who held no elected public office — that is, private citizens ('']'') — were given ''imperium'' and prorogued, as justified by perceived military emergencies. |
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By the late ], prorogation of ] had become the norm; by enabling individuals to accumulate disproportionate military power and wealth, the practice contributed to the breakdown of the ] and to the ] that led to the republic's collapse. |
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The titles "proconsul" and "propraetor" are not used by ] or literary sources of the republican era.{{sfn|Brennan|2001|p=603}} |
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== Effect == |
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A '']'' was originally a task (eg war with Carthage) assigned to someone, sometimes with geographic boundaries; when such territories were formally annexed,{{efn|What precisely "formally" means in this sense is a subject of much scholarly discussion.}} 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 theater of operations with unclear geographic boundaries. |
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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.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=213}} While Livy implies that prorogation extended a magistrate's '']'', this is contradicted in that ''imperium'' was not time-limited:{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=214}} eg Cicero's possession of ''imperium'' even after his governorship of Cilicia expired.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=127}} |
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Because ''imperium'' did not expire, prorogation was simply assignment of a person possessing ''imperium'' to some administrative or military duty. Previously, a ''provincia'' (task) expired with a magistracy; prorogation severed the old tightly-linked connection between magistrate and ''provincia''.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=291}} While normally someone in the theatre or province was prorogued, one could also be prorogued by assignment of a former magistrate waiting around Rome for a triumph (still possessing ''imperium'') to new ''provincia'': eg when ] and ], waiting around Rome for some three years for approval of triumphs, were assigned during the Catilinarian conspiracy to new ''provincia'' of Apulia and Faesulae respectively.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=215}} |
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A ] 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 '']'', passed following ]'s dictatorship, a governor was then required to give up his province within 30 days.{{sfn|Lintott|1993|pp=46-7}} A prorogued magistrate could not exercise his ''imperium'' within Rome.{{sfn|Brennan|2001|p=606}}{{sfn|Drogula|2007|p=419}} |
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==Constitutionality== |
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In his study of the praetorship in the republic, ] has argued that originally prorogation was of two types, granted either by ] or by the ]: a ''prorogatio'' was put to a vote by the people (''rogare'') to determine whether a provincial command should be extended; ''propagatio'' was an extension by the senate in other cases. |
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By the mid-2nd century BCE, the senate had usurped the popular authority, and eventually all extensions of ''imperium'' were called ''prorogatio''.{{sfn|Brennan|2000|p=603}} After the 190s BC, when the senate no longer submitted its decisions on extending commands to a popular vote, the term ''prorogatio'' becomes a misnomer, since no '']'' (consultation of the people) was involved.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Brennan|first=T Corey|editor-last=Flower|editor-first=Harriet I.|chapter=Power and Process under the Republican "Constitution"|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7SOjAwAAQBAJ|title=The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic|date=2014-06-23|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-03224-8|language=en|page=34}}</ref> |
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''Prorogatio'' has been characterized by modern scholars as a "dodge"{{sfn|Brennan|2001|p=598}} or a "legal fiction".{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=2013}} In the late republic, the ''prorogatio imperii'' for supposed military crises provided a precedent for the legal maneuvering that permitted the consolidation of formerly separate powers that underpinned ]'s constitution.<ref>{{Cite book|first=W |last=Eder |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-UTjncU9zFgC|chapter=The Augustan Principate as Binding Link|title=Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate|editor-last=Raaflaub|editor-first=Kurt A |editor-last2=Toher|editor-first2=Mark|editor-last3=Bowersock|editor-first3=Glen Warren|date=1993-12-21|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-08447-6|language=en|page=98}}</ref> |
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The nature of promagisterial ''imperium'' is complicated by its relation to the celebrating of a ] as awarded by the senate. Before a commander could enter the city limits ('']'') for his triumph, he had to lay aside arms formally and ritually, that is, he had to re-enter society as a civilian.{{efn|After his term as governor in ] in the late 60s BC, for instance, ] was awarded a triumph which he never got to celebrate; in order to register his candidacy for what would prove to be his first consulship, he had to meet a deadline for appearing in person in the city. The senate declined to allow him to register ''in absentia'', a privilege that had been granted to Marius when he was conducting wars abroad. Caesar thus had to choose between celebrating what would have been his first triumph, and running for the consulship. Rather than delay his political advancement, he gave up the ''gloria'' of the grand parade. Some biographers of Caesar have suggested that this insulting treatment by the senate, spearheaded by ], was one of the motivations in his drive for achievement, which had not been exceptional up to this point.}} 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''.<ref>{{harvnb|Versnel|1970|p=189}}. This pattern is visible, for instance, in <!--the article in which the following table appears is under construction-->provincial commands and prorogations in Cisalpine Gaul during the Middle Republic.</ref> |
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==Early Republic== |
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In the republic after 367 BC, only three magistrates held ''imperium''. At first, the appointment of '']'' and '']'' filled the need for additional military commanders.{{sfn|Lintott|1999|p=113}} |
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The first recorded prorogation was that of the consul ] 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 ]) 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".{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=210}} Livy reports that legislation was then moved through the tribunes that "when he should continue to manage the campaign ''pro consule'' until he should bring the war with the Greeks to an end".<ref>{{harvnb|Drogula|2015|p=211}}; Livy 8.23.11-12. This decision also may have been motivated by the substantial delay in consular elections that year.</ref> This innovation permitted Philo to hold the military authority and responsibility of a magistrate while not actually being a magistrate.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=211}} 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.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=212}} |
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In the following decades, it became regular practice to prorogue consuls, with prorogation of praetors starting in 241 BC.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=212}} During the ] (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''.{{sfn|Brennan|2001|p=602}} <ref>E.S. Staveley, "Rome and Italy in the Early Third Century, " ''Cambridge Ancient History'' (Cambridge University Press, 1989, reprinted 2002), p. 437 </ref> In 307, ] became the second magistrate to have his command prorogued.{{sfn|Cornell|1970|p=378}} But in the years 296–295, 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.{{sfn|Cornell|1989|p=378}}<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Millar|first=Fergus|date=1984|title=The Political Character of the Classical Roman Republic, 200–151 B.C.*|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-roman-studies/article/abs/political-character-of-the-classical-roman-republic-200151-bc/6870706C8E33C21E8775363F7D78237A|journal=Journal of Roman Studies|language=en|volume=74|pages=1–19|doi=10.2307/299003|issn=1753-528X|quote=Roman ] was demonstrated consistently in northern Italy and Spain, at various periods in Greece and Macedonia (200–194, 191–187–171–168), and for one period of three years in Asia Minor (190–188)}}</ref> Because the promagistracies, like the ], 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.{{sfn|Brennan|2001|pp=38-43}} |
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==Middle Republic== |
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Commanders were often prorogued during the ] (264–241 BC). By the end of this long conflict, a second praetor had been added to the three magistrates holding ''imperium''. The new office was the ''praetor qui inter peregrinos ius dicit'' ("praetor who administers justice among foreigners"). Brennan has argued that the purpose of this new office was not, as is often thought, to administer justice to foreigners living in Rome, but '']'' in the provinces as the situation seemed to require. When the peregrine praetor was abroad with a military command, the urban praetor could remain in Rome to avoid suspending public and judicial business. The ''praetor urbanus'', however, might also go abroad to take on a military command if the situation seemed to warrant it. During the 220s and 210s, the ''praetor peregrinus'' is found most often in ], fighting without much success against various Gallic ].{{sfn|Brennan|2001|pp=603-5}} |
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An increase in the number of praetors during this period is linked to the annexation of geographic "provinces" organized under formal administration. In 228–227 BC, two new praetorships were created and assigned to Rome's first administrative provinces, Sicily (]) and Sardinia ('']'').<ref>{{harvnb|Brennan|2001|p=605}}. Earlier dates for Sicily and Sardinia as ''provinciae'' refer to military commands prior to formal annexation — though what constitutes "annexation" during this period is sometimes unclear.</ref> In 197 BC, two more praetorships were created along with the administrative provinces of '']'' and '']'', bringing the number to six.{{sfn|Lintott|1999|p=114}} |
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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."{{sfn|Pittenger|2009|p=77}}<ref>{{harvnb|Gruen|1986|203}}: "Rome had nothing resembling a diplomatic corps".</ref> During the ] (218–201 BC), commands were also prorogued out of necessity, because so many of Rome's ruling elite had died in the conflict; prorogation became almost the norm for the ''provinciae'' of Sicily, Sardinia, ] (as a military command prior to annexation), and the ].{{sfn|Gruen|1986|p=215}} As consul in 218 BC, ] was assigned to Spain, and had his command prorogued through 211, when he was killed and his army defeated by ] forces. It was under these pressures that private citizens (''privati'') were granted ''imperium''. Precedent was established in 210 when a vote by the assembly gave Scipio's son, later to be known as ], a long-term command ''pro consule'' in Spain, although he was ''privatus''; his second-in-command acted ''pro praetore''. Scipio did not return to Rome until 206, and proconsuls continued to be appointed specifically for Spain after that.{{sfn|Lintott|1999|p=114}} |
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In the 2nd century BC, proconsular ''imperium'' had ceased to be granted by the popular assembly; the now-fictional ''prorogatio'' was justified by military emergencies as decided by the senate. "Unusual political influence" was required for prorogations of longer than one year.{{sfn|Lintott|1999|p=114}} The '']'' of 181 BC, which cracked down on ], was accompanied by an attempt to regulate prorogation in relation to the praetorship. Advancement through the ] had not been regularized before the 190s; the consulship and praetorship might be held in either order, without prerequisites. A law dating around 196 BC began to require that candidates for the consulship first serve as praetors, now numbering six. Competition for the praetorship became fierce, and campaign corruption ('']'') virulent. The ''Lex Baebia et Cornelia'' of 181 devised a complicated system aimed at limiting the number of ex-praetors vying for the consulship. In the ] for ''provinciae'', the two Spains were to be left out in odd-numbered years, and only four praetorships would be available in those years. In effect, a provincial appointment in Spain meant automatic prorogation, resulting in a two-year term — and sometimes a shortage of administrators for other provinces that in turn required further prorogation. Six praetors become the norm again in the mid-170s, with administrative needs prioritized over ].{{sfn|Brennan|2001|pp=625–6}} |
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==Late Republic== |
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Prorogation takes on a new importance with the annexation of ] and the ] 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.{{efn|This includes the six territorial provinces requiring a ] (Sicily, Sardinia, the two Spains, Macedonia, and Africa), and the two city jurisdictions of the ''praetor urbanus'' and the ''praetor peregrinus''.}} This point marks the beginning of the era of the so-called "]," a post for which there is no single word in the republic. Prorogation became fully institutionalized, and even the ''praetor urbanus'' was sometimes prorogued. Governors who received established territorial provinces could expect longer tenures.{{sfn|Brennan|2001|pp=626-7}} The addition of the wealthy ] in 133 BC as a ] of ] put further pressure on the system, again without increasing the number of praetorships: |
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{{cquote|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.{{sfn|Brennan|2001|pp=627-8}}<ref>Brennan, ''Praetorship'' pp. 627–628.</ref>}} |
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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, often occasioned by prosecutions for extortion in the provinces or electoral corruption,{{efn|] remarks that when a praetor was given an extended command, it allowed him to extort enough money out of allies to buy the consulship, which in turn would give him another chance to plunder a province before he lost his immunity from prosecution as a magistrate; ] to ''Pro Scauro'' 14.3. {{harvnb|Brennan|2001|p=584}}.}} and only after their term were praetors regularly assigned to a province as proconsul or propraetor.{{sfn|Lintott|1999|p=114}}{{sfn|Brennan|2001|p=628}} 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. The holding of ''imperium'' thus depended less and less on elected office, detaching power further from its foundation in the People. "In the era 122–91," Brennan writes, "the Senate used prorogation as a panacea for its ailing administrative system." Emergency grants of ''imperium'' in the field during the ] (91–87 BC) made the granting of extra-magisterial command routine. When ] 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.{{sfn|Brennan|2001|p=583, 629}} |
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Prorogations of three years were not uncommon during this period, and the Senate begins to assign commands predetermined at three years or more in length.{{Sfn|Lintott|1999|p=114}}{{sfn|Brennan|2001|pp=583-4, 636-7}} ] held various combinations of provincial assignments on the ] and in ] for more than a decade (92–81 BC), without any indication that he ever returned to Rome or was without a command. On more than one occasion,{{efn|In Hispania Citerior 77–71 BC, against ] in 67, in the East 66–62. {{sfn|Brennan|2001|p=636}}.}} ] received ''imperium pro consule'' before he ever held a magistracy — at first from the senate, then by vote of the people. Given the extended prorogations, the five-year proconsular commands assigned to ] in Gaul and ] in ] are less exceptional than they have sometimes been regarded; it could be argued that the five-year appointment was a realistic assessment of the time required to accomplish the task, and avoided the uncertainty, delays, and political jockeying of year-by-year prorogation. |
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Although competition for remunerative provinces, especially Asia, might be fierce,{{sfn|Brennan|2001|p=584}} provinces that offered more administrative headaches than kickbacks were regarded as drudge duty. ] indicated his lack of enthusiasm for provincial governing when he repeatedly wrote to friends asking them to make sure that his proconsulship in ] (51–50 BC) would not be prorogued.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Lintott|first=Andrew|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ef4Sqfmga1AC|title=Cicero as Evidence: A Historian's Companion|date=2008-02-07|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-921644-4|language=en|page=253}}</ref> |
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Pompey's status as ''privatus cum imperio'' established a precedent that was resorted to during attempts at carrying on a republican form of government in 43 BC, following Caesar's assassination, as evidenced in particular by the commands of ], ], ], and most fatefully ].{{Sfn|Lintott|1999|p=114}} |
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==See also== |
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*], a later medieval derivation and evolution of the term as method(s) of governance |
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== Notes == |
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{{Notelist|30em}} |
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==References== |
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{{Reflist|15em}} |
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== Sources == |
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* {{Cite book|last=Brennan|first=T. Corey|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LtWq0nabTEYC|title=The Praetorship in the Roman Republic: Volume 2: 122 to 49 BC|date=2001-06-21|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-511460-7|language=en}} |
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* {{Cite book|last=Cornell|first=TJ|chapter=The Conquest of Italy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3qXuay2SEtIC|title=The Cambridge Ancient History|date=1970|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-23446-7|language=en}} |
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* {{Cite journal|last=Drogula|first=Fred K.|date=2007|title=Imperium, Potestas, and the Pomerium in the Roman Republic|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25598407|journal=Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte|volume=56|issue=4|pages=419–452|issn=0018-2311}} |
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* {{Cite book|last=Drogula|first=Fred K.|url=https://books.google.com/books/about/Commanders_and_Command_in_the_Roman_Repu.html?id=XJ6_BwAAQBAJ|title=Commanders and Command in the Roman Republic and Early Empire|date=2015-04-13|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|isbn=978-1-4696-2127-2|language=en}} |
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* {{Cite book|last=Gruen|first=Erich S.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EkdCokrrp4gC|title=The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome|date=1986-09-25|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-05737-1|language=en}} |
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* {{Cite book|last=Lintott|first=Andrew William|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1LM9AAAAIAAJ|title=Imperium Romanum: Politics and Administration|date=1993|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-09375-0|language=en}} |
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* {{Cite book|last=Lintott|first=Andrew|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yaFPohP2lB8C|title=The Constitution of the Roman Republic|date=1999-04-01|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-158467-1|language=en}} |
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* {{Cite book|last=Pittenger|first=Miriam R. Pelikan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fs53Wa6fKRMC|title=Contested Triumphs: Politics, Pageantry, and Performance in Livy’s Republican Rome|date=2009-02-10|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-94277-6|language=en}} |
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* {{Cite book|last=Versnel|first=H. S.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DswUAAAAIAAJ|title=Triumphus: An Inquiry Into the Origin, Development and Meaning of the Roman Triumph|date=1970|publisher=Brill Archive|language=en}} |
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{{Italic title}} |
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