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PRAETO´RIUM

PRAETO´RIUM in its primary sense was the tent of the general (praetor), the headquarters in the camp (Mommsen, Staatsrecht, ii.3 74) [CASTRA Vol. I. p. 373]. Hence we find it used for the palace of a provincial governor, not only when his official title was praetor (as in Cic. Ver. 4.28, 65), but also when the residence of a proconsul or even of a procurator as meant: (cf. John 18.28): for the palace of a foreign prince, as Prusias (Juv. 10.161), or Herod (Acts 28.35). It was used also for any large country-house (Juv. 1.75; Mart. 10.79; Suet. Aug. 72, Tib. 39, Calig. 37), but it would not rightly be used of a house at Rome, however “palatial” it might be. It is no doubt the case (as Professor Mayor points out in his note on Juv. l.c.) that the original idea of head.quarters on active service is retained. The villa was the whole property, dwellinghouse, gardens, farm, &c.; the house itself, as the head-quarters of the owner, was the praetorium. The word may, however, also be applied (as Bishop Lightfoot shows on Ep. ad Philipp. pp. 101 ff.) to a body of men forming the council of war which met in the general's tent (Liv. 26.15; 30.5), and later to the imperial body-guard, the attendants on the holder of the imperium, who represented the praetor or general of an earlier period (Tac. Hist. 2.11; Suet. Nero 9). A legionary is said to serve in legione, a guardsman in praetorio (Plin. Nat. 25.17; Tac. Hist. 1.20, 4.46). These praetoriani or praetorian guardsmen [EXERCITUS Vol. I. p. 793] were by Tiberius concentrated in a camp outside the Colline gate (Tac. Ann. 4.2; Merivale, Rom. Hist. 5.221); but this camp was not, as has sometimes been stated, called praetorium, but castra praetoria, castra praetorianorum, or castra praetorii (Tac. Hist. 1.31; Plin. Nat. 3.67). These quarters of the praetorian guard were destroyed by Constantine, when he disbanded the guard itself; but he left the outer walls of the camp, because they had been made part of the Aurelian Wall (Burn, Rome and Campagna, p. 61).

[W.S] [G.E.M]

hide References (12 total)
  • Cross-references from this page (12):
    • Cicero, Against Verres, 2.4.65
    • Suetonius, Nero, 9
    • Tacitus, Annales, 4.2
    • Tacitus, Historiae, 1.20
    • Tacitus, Historiae, 1.31
    • Tacitus, Historiae, 2.11
    • Tacitus, Historiae, 4.46
    • Suetonius, Divus Augustus, 72
    • Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, 25.17
    • Livy, The History of Rome, Book 26, 15
    • Livy, The History of Rome, Book 30, 5
    • Martial, Epigrammata, 10.79
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