Rome and her Enemies

A snapshot of the Praetorian Guard at the time of the Julio-Claudians

The Praetorian Guard has become a byword for military force that is used to prop up a ruthless regime. There is no doubt that they performed this function in the Roman Empire. As the main body of troops in Rome they were the emperor’s instrument to discourage plotting and rebellion and to crush unrest. They were the emperor’s most immediate line of defence; they could also, on occasion, be his most deadly enemies.

Comfortable and relatively safe in their barracks in Rome, enjoying shorter service and better pay and bonuses than any other unit in the Empire, and often involved in nothing more arduous than sentry-duty at the palace, the Praetorians were the envy of the legionaries stationed at the frontiers. All this might seem an unlikely background for an elite fighting unit, yet when the Guard did take the field, they appear to have been well enough trained and officered to acquit themselves well. Indeed, in the late first and second centuries, when emperors frequently campaigned in person and took the Guard with them, they proved efficient and loyal.

Organisation
The great majority of the Praetorian Guard were infantry but, as with the legions, the Guard did include an attachment of cavalry. Inscriptions suggest that men could become cavalry (equites) after about five years’ service as infantry. The Guard also had a special elite cavalry section, known as the speculatores Augusti, who formed the emperor’s cavalry bodyguard. These men were apparently distinguished by a special form of boot of unknown form, the caliga speculatoria, and they received specific honorific bronze diplomas on discharge. The strength of this body of men is uncertain, but they had their own riding instructor and were commanded by a centurio speculatorum.

For the first century of the Principate, the Julio-Claudian emperors had a personal bodyguard of German troops operating alongside the Praetorians. Their origin lay in the period of the civil wars, when foreign mercenaries seem to have been regarded as more reliable than a guard of Roman citizens whose loyalties might be divided. Unlike the Praetorians the Germans (Germani Corporis Custodes) were in effect a private force. Recruitment was direct from Germany and Gaul, and inscriptions show that the individuals did not become Roman citizens. The use of Germans, with their shaggy beards, immense size and renowned ferocity, was intended to discourage assassins.

The Germans acted as infantry when on guard at the palace but as cavalry in the field, and were always closely associated with the Praetorians. They were, however, paramilitary rather than a genuine part of the Roman army.

Uniform and equipment
The appearance of the Praetorians undoubtedly changed somewhat throughout the course of their history, but some types of equipment have always been regarded as characteristic of the Guard, in particular the so-called ‘Attic’ helmet with bushy crest, and the oval shield. These appear in a famous relief now in the Louvre, Paris, which was once dated to the early second century, but is now recognised as coming from the Arch of Claudius erected in AD51. The combination of Attic helmet and oval shield has been thought of as imparting a conscious archaic look to the Praetorians – something akin to the red tunics and bearskins of the modern British Foot Guards – but recent research suggests that the Praetorians were simply equipped in a manner similar to their contemporaries in the legions. The tunica was the basic Roman male garment, worn by soldiers and civilians alike, although soldiers wore it short above the knee. It is frequently assumed that the soldier’s tunic was usually red, but the available evidence suggests that the normal colour was white or off-white, the colour of undyed wool.

There is nothing to suggest that the rest of the Praetorians’ arms and equipment differed from that of the legions. Trajan’s Column, which depicts the story of Trajan’s two Dacian wars, seems to make no distinction between Praetorian and legionary equipment, ascribing segmented armour to both, whilst following a convention of distinguishing auxiliaries by their use of mail shirts. Praetorians and legionaries are armed identically with javelin and a sword worn on the right side.

There were, nevertheless, certain items of dress and insignia which were peculiar to the Guard. Most distinctive of all, perhaps, was the civilian toga worn whilst on duty at the palace and in the Capitol in the first two centuries AD. The symbolism and political significance of this impractical form of dress is a feature apparently unique to the Praetorians. Less out-of-the-ordinary is the special form of standard used by the Praetorians. Literary sources suggest that Praetorian standards had imperial portraits (imagines) attached to them, whereas the legions and auxiliaries seem for the most part to have had such imagines carried separately by special portrait-bearers (imaginiferi). Praetorian standards have therefore been identified on Trajan’s Column and other reliefs from their display of such portraits along with military decorations – mainly different types of crowns. Praetorian standard-bearers, whilst they carry the small round shield and are otherwise equipped like legionary standard-bearers on the monuments, are nevertheless distinguished from them by wearing lion masks and pelts, as opposed to bearskins, over their helmets and down their backs.

Duties
Until 2BC each Praetorian cohort was an independent unit under the separate command of a tribune of equestrian rank (i.e. a Roman knight). At that point Augustus appointed two senior Roman knights to take overall command as Praetorian Prefects. Whilst in Rome their principal duty was to mount guard at Augustus’ home on the Palatine. Each afternoon, at the eighth hour, the tribune of the cohort on duty would receive the watchword from the emperor in person. After the construction of the Praetorian camp in AD23 there was a tribune on duty there, too. Other duties included escorting the emperor and other members of the imperial family and, if necessary, acting as a form of riot police. Again, to avoid antagonising the population of Rome and in accordance with Republican custom, the Praetorians did not wear armour when performing such duties within the city. Instead, they wore the rather formal toga, which would still make them conspicuous in a crowd but was a civilian garment and the mark of a Roman citizen. Even military displays were infrequent, and the troops appeared in armour in Rome only on very special occasions.

The Praetorian camp (Castra Praetoria)
The walls of the camp built for the Praetorians in AD23 can still be seen in Rome today. The remaining northern, eastern and southern walls stand on the Viminal Hill, where they house the modern-day garrison of Rome. They enclose an area of just over 17 hectares, about two-thirds the size of the average legionary fortress on the frontiers. This suggests a capacity of something like 4,000 men, but the few internal buildings which can be traced include extra rooms ranged around the inside of the walls and traces of two-storey barracks, so a true capacity of 12,000 men or more may therefore not be fanciful.

Service in the Praetorian cohorts
Recruitment
Service in the Praetorian Guard was in many ways an attractive proposition, offering a shorter period of service and better pay than the legions, together with the perks and advantages of living in Rome, and less frequent exposure to danger and discomfort. We know from inscriptions that men were recruited between the ages of 15 and 32, a rather broader spread than for legionary recruitment, which was usually between 17 and 23.

Most Praetorian Guards were recruited from central and northern Italy, and also from Spain and Macedonia in the first two centuries AD. This means the Guard was drawn from the most prosperous and Romanised parts of the Empire. When Septimus Severus came to power, however, he dismissed the unruly Praetorians who had tried to buy and sell the Empire in 193, and replaced them with men from his own Danubian legions. After this, Italians were no longer recruited at all; instead it was mostly men from the less Romanised Danube region who served in the Guard, after four to nine years’ service in the legions.

Remuneration
From 5BC onwards, Praetorians signed up for 16 years’ service, compared to the 25 years demanded in the legions. In 27BC, Augustus established the pay of Praetorians as double that of legionaries. By AD14 they were receiving 720 denarii per year, three times the 225 of the legionaries; this differential is likely to have remained constant throughout the history of the Guard. Claudius gave the Guard five years’ salary at his accession, becoming the first emperor to buy their loyalty in this way, according to Suetonius. Most emperors followed suit to a greater or lesser extent while at the same time the legions often got nothing. Such slender evidence as exists also suggests that Praetorians were more likely to be decorated for courage in battle than legionaries. On retirement they received proportionally larger discharge bonuses, 5,000 as opposed to 3,000 denarii and, unlike legionaries, they were presented with honorific diplomas on bronze which made legitimate their first marriages and the children born of them. The huge discrepancy in the treatment of Praetorians and of legionaries was obviously the result of their constant presence in Rome, and their ability to create and destroy emperors.

Career path
In order to be accepted into the Guard and reap these rewards, a man would need to be physically fit, of good character and respectable family. He would also have to make use of all the patronage available, by obtaining letters of recommendation from any men of importance he knew. If he passed the induction procedure and became probates, he would be assigned as a miles to one of the centuries of a cohort. After a few years, providing he could gain the attention of his officers by influence or merit, he might obtain a post as an immunis, perhaps as a headquarters clerk or a technician, any of which would free him from normal fatigues. A few more years’ service might advance him to principalis, with double pay, in charge of passing on the watchword (tesserarius) or as a centurion’s deputy (optio) or standard-bearer (signifer) in the century; or, if highly literate and numerate, he might be appointed to the Prefect’s staff.

Only a small number of soldiers would achieve the grade of principalis but those who did might, on completion of their service, be appointed evocati Augusti by the emperor. This appointment enabled them to take up administrative, technical or instructor posts in Rome, or a centurionate in a legion, and so extend their careers. Alternatively, some principales might before the end of their service be advanced to the rank of centurion in the Guard. The centurionate was enormously prestigious and well paid and we know that some Roman knights gave up their equestrian status in order to obtain a direct commission to this rank. For the man who had risen to this position it would probably be the culmination of his career, and although there was no restriction on the length of service, he would probably retire in it. Anyone who wished to climb further up the ladder would have to transfer to a legion, and very few would be able to do this.