Commanders by the Will of the Senate: Governors of the Senate Provinces in the Military Command System during the Period of the Early Roman Empire

Abstract

The relevance of the research topic is due to the insufficient study of the role of the governors of the Senate provinces in the military command system of the early Roman Empire. Completion of this knowledge is necessary both for studying the military organization of Rome, and for revealing the essence of the Roman state-political system. The purpose of the study is to find the legal and ideological grounds for the military status of the governors of the senatorial provinces, which, in the author’s opinion, should be resolved primarily in the context of considering the issue of imperium militiae of such governors. In the absence of direct indications in this regard in the sources, the method of reconstruction was the analysis of specific material (including prosopographic), reflecting the military functions of the governors appointed by the Senate. The author made an attempt to find out the commander’s status of the governors by finding a full-fledged imperium militiae in them. The author’s conclusion: throughout the entire period of the early Empire, the governors of the senatorial provinces retained their imperium militiae, continuing to carry out the functions of a military leader, although to a much lesser extent than at the beginning of the period. Such governors remained an important element in the system of military command, especially in critical situations that regularly arose even in the «pacified» provinces.

Keywords

• roman empire
• roman army
• senatorial provinces
• principate
• proconsul
• imperial legate
• imperium militiae