Editing Promagistrate (section)

===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}}