Editing Governor (section)

===Ancient Rome===
{{main|Roman governor}}

From the creation of the earliest Roman subject provinces, a governor was appointed each year to administer each of them. The core function of a Roman governor was as a [[magistrate]] or judge, and the management of taxation and the public spending in their area.

Under the Republic and the early Empire, however, a governor also commanded military forces in his province. Republican governors were all men who had served in senior magistracies (the [[consul]]ate or [[praetor]]ship) in Rome in the previous year, and carried related titles as governor (''proconsul'' or ''[[promagistrate|propraetor]]''). The first emperor, Octavianus Augustus (who acquired or settled a number of new territories; officially his style was republican: [[Princeps civitatis]]), divided the provinces into two categories; the traditionally prestigious governorships remained as before (in what have become known as "senatorial" provinces), while in a range of others, he retained the formal governorship himself, delegating the actual task of administration to appointees (usually with the title ''legatus Augusti''). The ''legatus'' sometimes would appoint a [[prefect]] (later [[procurator (Roman)|procurator]]), usually a man of [[Equestrian (Roman)|equestrian]] rank, to act as his deputy in a subregion of the larger province: the infamous character of [[Pontius Pilate]] in the Christian [[Gospel]]s was a governor of this sort.

A special case was Egypt, a rich 'private' domain and vital granary, where the emperor almost inherited the theocratic status of a pharaoh. The emperor was represented there by a governor ''sui generis'' styled ''[[praefectus augustalis]]'', a title evoking the [[Imperial cult (ancient Rome)|religious cult of the emperor]].

Emperors Diocletian (see [[Tetrarchy]]) and Constantine in the third and fourth centuries AD carried out a root and branch reorganisation of the administration with two main features:

*Provinces were divided up and became much more numerous (Italy itself, before the 'colonizing homeland', was brought into the system for the first time); they were then grouped into [[Roman diocese|dioceses]], and the dioceses in turn into four [[praetorian prefecture]]s (originally each under a residing co-emperor);
*Military responsibilities were removed from governors and given to new officials called ''[[comes]] rei militaris'' (the comital title was also granted to many court and civilian administrative positions) or ''[[dux]]'', later also ''[[magister militum]]''.

The prestigious governorships of Africa and Asia remained with the title proconsul, and the special right to refer matters directly to the emperor; the ''[[praefectus augustalis]]'' in Alexandria and the ''[[comes Orientis]]'' in Antioch also retained special titles. Otherwise, the governors of provinces had various titles, some known as ''[[consularis]]'', some as ''[[corrector]]'', while others as ''[[praeses]]''. Apart from Egypt and the East (''Oriens'' – ''viz'' greater Syria), each diocese was directed by a governor known as a ''[[vicarius]]''. The prefectures were directed by ''[[praetorian prefect|praefecti praetorio]]'' (greatly transformed in their functions from their role in the [[Principate|early Empire]]).