Editing Promagistrate (section)

== History ==

=== Emergence ===
The literary sources of [[Livy]] and [[Dionysius of Halicarnassus]] name a number of commanders in the early republic as proconsuls or propraetors. Modern historians believe the use of these titles is largely anachronistic and also self-contradictory, as Livy notes that the first promagisterial appointment was in 327&nbsp;BC.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=27}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Develin |first=Robert |date=1975 |title=Prorogation of imperium before the Hannibalic war |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41533367 |journal=Latomus |volume=34 |issue=3 |pages=716–722 |jstor=41533367 |issn=0023-8856}} Cf Livy 3.4.10.</ref> In the republic after 367&nbsp;BC, only three types magistrates held ''imperium'': dictators, consuls, and praetors. At first, the appointment of ''[[Roman dictator|dictatores]]'' and ''[[Master of the Horse#The Roman Master of the Horse (Magister Equitum)|magistri equitum]]'' filled the need for additional military commanders.{{sfn|Lintott|1999|p=113}} 

The first recorded prorogation and promagistrate was that of the consul [[Quintus Publilius Philo]] in 327&nbsp;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 [[Naples]]) 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 by the tribunes that "when [Quintus Publilius' term expired] 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 one.{{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}}

In the following decades, it became regular practice to prorogue consuls and prorogation of praetors started in 241&nbsp;BC.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=212}} During the [[Samnite Wars|Second and Third Samnite Wars]] (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}} In 307, [[Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus]] became the second magistrate to have his command prorogued.{{sfn|Cornell|1989|p=378}} But in the years 296–95, 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 BC |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 |volume=74 |pages=1–19 |doi=10.2307/299003 |jstor=299003 |s2cid=155069351 |issn=1753-528X |quote=Roman [[militarism]] 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).|url-access=subscription }}</ref> 

In this early period, prorogued assignments, like the [[Roman dictator|dictatorship]], 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}}

=== During the Punic Wars ===

Commanders were often prorogued during the [[First Punic War]] (264–241 BC). During the [[Second Punic War]], Rome started to assign private citizens both ''imperium'' (military authority) and assign them to ''provincia'' (here meaning military tasks). These ''privati cum imperio'' were unable to triumph, probably due to their lack of an official magistracy. The legal authority for this emerged directly from the sovereign powers of the Roman assemblies who were then able "to select any man[,] whether or not he had ever been elected to office[,] and make him the commander of any ''provincia'' they wished".{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=220}} These ''privati cum imperio'' had titles ''pro consule''{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=225}} or ''pro praetore'', in place of regular magistrates.

The first instance may have been in 215&nbsp;BC after the losses at [[Battle of the Trebia|Trebia]], [[Battle of Lake Trasimene|Trasimene]], and [[Battle of Cannae|Cannae]] when [[Marcus Claudius Marcellus]] was elected suffect consul in the place of [[Lucius Postumius Albinus (consul 234 BC)|Lucius Postumius Albinus]], deceased.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=221}} However, he was forced to resign when the [[augur]]s detected flaws in his election; even so, the people passed laws to invest him with ''imperium'' and assigned him to take a consular army regardless.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=221}} Some scholars and argue instead that Marcellus' just-completed praetorship meant he was just prorogued.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=221}}

The clearest instance is in the assignment of [[Scipio Africanus|Publius Cornelius Scipio]] (later ''Africanus'') to Spain in 211&nbsp;BC before he had held any magistracy. After the deaths of his father and uncle in Spain, no consul or praetor wanted to take up the province. The people invested Scipio with the command and the necessary ''imperium'' and ''auspicium militiae'' regardless.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=222}} After Scipio's victory in 206&nbsp;BC, two more ''privati cum imperio'' were dispatched to the peninsula, which continued under such command until the creation of two new praetors in 197&nbsp;BC made it possible to send annual magistrates.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=223}} Generally, prorogation became almost the norm for the ''provinciae'' of Sicily, Sardinia, [[Hispania]], and the [[Roman Navy|naval fleets]] due to the lack of sufficient annual magistrates.{{sfn|Gruen|1986|p=215}}

The expansion of promagistracies shattering the connection between military command and magisterial office, allowing any aristocrat so empowered by law the power to exercise military authority without any official status within the city's normal civilian government.{{Sfn|Drogula|2015|p=223}} Another impact of this wartime expedience was separating "magisterial precedence" from the magistracy itself, creating something akin to a military rank, evident in the jockeying of magistrates over the specific status of their prorogation: eg, desire to attain the more prestigious ''pro consule'' status.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|pp=225-8}}<ref>{{Harvnb|Drogula|2015|p=228|ps=. Re status: "one can imagine that even praetors denied a triumph might have dallied outside the ''pomerium'' for a period of time rejoicing in their own magnificence... adorned in consular splendour".}}</ref> The close of the wartime crisis and the return of annual governors also dampened the length of prorogations, allowing the senate to regain more granular control over provincial assignments.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=307}}  

At the beginning, there were two distinct forms of prorogation – per [[T. Corey Brennan]]'s ''Praetorship in the Roman republic'' – a ''prorogatio'' before the people to determine whether a provincial command should be extended and a ''propagatio'' from the senate in other cases.{{sfn|Brennan|2001|p=603}} But by the 190s&nbsp;BC, the senate stopped submitting decisions on prorogation of permanent ''provinciae'' to the people for ratification and eventually all extensions of ''imperium'' were called ''prorogatio''.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=255}}{{sfn|Brennan|2001|p=603}} After this point, the term ''prorogatio'' became a misnomer, since no ''[[rogatio]]'' (consultation of the people) was involved.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Brennan|first=T Corey|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|editor-last=Flower|editor-first=Harriet I.|page=34 |chapter=Power and Process under the Republican "Constitution"}}</ref> This likely emerged because the decision of ''whether'' to send commanders had been replaced to the question of ''who'' should be sent, and therefore became a routine staffing decision.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=255}}

===In the late republic===
The promagistrates take on a new importance with the annexation of [[Macedonia (Roman province)|Macedonia]] and the [[Africa (Roman province)|Roman province of Africa]] in 146&nbsp;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|There were six provinces: Sicily, Sardinia, nearer and further Spain, Macedonia and Africa. Brennan also counts the urban and peregrine courts as ''provinciae''.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=237}}}} This point marks the beginning of the era of the so-called "[[Roman governor]]", a post for which there is no single word in the Republic. Promagistracies became fully institutionalised, and even the ''praetor urbanus'' was sometimes prorogued. Due to the lack of replacement magistrates, governors with established territorial provinces had their tenures increased.{{sfn|Brennan|2001|pp=626-7}} The addition of the wealthy [[Asia (Roman province)|Asian province]] in 133&nbsp;BC as a [[bequest]] of [[Attalus III]] put further pressure on the system, again without increasing the number of praetorships:

{{quote|
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=627-28}}
}}

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; 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. Emergency grants of ''imperium'' in the field during the [[Social War (91–88 BC)|Social War]] (91–87 BC) made the granting of extra-magisterial command routine. When [[Sulla]] assumed the dictatorship in late 82&nbsp;BC, the territorial provinces alone numbered ten, with possibly six permanent courts to be presided over in the city.{{sfn|Brennan|2001|pp=583, 629}}

The rise of ''[[popularis]]'' political tactics from the time of Gaius Marius forward also coincided with the creation of "super ''provinciae''", "massive commands in which multiple permanent provinces were incorporated into a single consular provincial assignment" with "proportionately larger military and financial resources".{{sfn|Drogula|2015|p=306}} Pompey, for example, declined a province after his consulship in 70&nbsp;BC until he was able to convince a friendly tribune to create an enormous command against the pirates in consequence of the {{lang|la|[[lex Gabinia]]}} in 67&nbsp;BC and, then, a similarly vast eastern command during the [[Third Mithridatic War]] the next year.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|pp=307, 306}} These super-provinces were traditional in the sense that they were meant to defeat some particular enemy, but the scale of the campaign and the concentration of power under a single commander was unprecedented.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|pp=306-7}} The fixed multi-year terms of those campaigns also were unheard of in the earlier Republic; their length detracted from the Senate's ''de facto'' powers to assign provinces and control the ambition of its members by splitting both the proceeds and glory of single campaigns between multiple commanders.{{sfn|Drogula|2015|pp=307-8}}