CONSULA´RIS
CONSULA´RIS throughout the time of the Roman
republic, signifies a person who has been invested with the consulship; but
under the empire it became a mere title for the higher class of officers,
who thereby obtained permission to have the insignia of a consul, without
ever having actually been consuls. Hence the title was almost equivalent to
that of an “honorary consul” (
consul
honorarius; Cod. Theod. vi. tit. 19, s. 1; vi. tit. 2, s. 2).
The title was given especially to generals, as formerly persons after their
consulship had usually undertaken the command of an army in the provinces,
and in many instances they were the same as the legati principis or the
magistri militum. (Veget. 2.9;
Dig. 3, tit. 2, s.
2.) It was further a common custom, established even by the first emperors,
to give to governors of imperial provinces the title of consularis,
irrespective of their ever having been consuls. (
Suet. Aug. 33,
Tib. 33,
Domit. 6;
Tac.
Agric. 8, 14, 40.) Consularis thus gradually became the
established title for those entrusted with the administration of imperial
provinces. During the 2nd century A.D. the title
consularis always denotes a governor who had actually held
the office of consul, or had
[p. 1.538]received the rank
from the emperor
per codicillos; but by the 4th
century it had become a mere title of a particular class of provincial
governors. The Emperor Hadrian divided Italy into four regions, and over
each he placed an officer who likewise bore the title of consularis, and was
entrusted with the administration of justice in his district, whence he is
frequently called
Juridicus (Spartian.
Hadr. 22, with the note of Salmas.). At Constantinople
the title was given to the superintendents of the aqueducts (
consulares aquarum), who had to see that all public
and private places were properly supplied with water, and who seem to have
been analogous to the curatores aquarum of Rome. They are frequently
mentioned in inscriptions, and also in the Codex of Justinian and
Theodosius. (Cf. Marquardt,
Röm. Staatsverwaltung,
1.408-9.)
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