prorogatio

''Prorogatio'' was a Roman practice in which a Roman magistrate's duties were extended beyond its normal annual term. It developed as a response to Roman expansion's demands for more generals and governors to administer conquered territories.

Prorogation created an official with no civilian authority or responsibility in Rome and allowed commanders to retain their position indefinitely, weakening the time-limited check that Romans had over their commanders. Prorogation's permission for a commander to remain with "expert knowledge of local conditions" also helped increase the chances of victory; in the late Republic, politics often motivated by the ambitions of individuals, decided whose commands were extended. Sometimes men who held no elected public office – that is, private citizens (''privati'') – were given ''imperium'' and prorogued, as justified by perceived military emergencies.

By the late Republic, prorogation of provincial assignments had become the norm; by enabling individuals to accumulate disproportionate military power and wealth, the practice contributed to the breakdown of the republican constitution and to the civil wars that led to the Republic's collapse.

The titles "proconsul" and "propraetor" are not used by Livy or literary sources of the republican era.

Legal effect

A ''provincia'' was originally a task (e.g., war with Carthage) assigned to someone, sometimes with geographic boundaries; when such territories were formally annexed, the fixed geographical entity became a "province" in modern terms, but in the early and middle Republic, the "task" was most often a military command within a defined theatre of operations with unclear geographic boundaries.

In his study of the praetorship in the Republic, T. Corey Brennan has argued that originally prorogation was of two types, granted either by the Roman People or by the Senate: a ''prorogatio'' was put to a vote by the people (''rogare'') to determine whether a provincial command should be extended; ''propagatio'' was an extension by the senate in other cases.

Prorogation did not create a new commander or even class of general. It merely allowed a magistrate to continue performing duties beyond the expiration of the magistracy. While Livy implies that prorogation extended a magistrate's ''imperium'', this is contradicted in that ''imperium'' was not time-limited: eg Cicero's possession of ''imperium'' even after his governorship of Cilicia expired.

Because ''imperium'' did not expire, prorogation was simply an extension or reassignment of a commander's possession of a ''provincia'', something feasible by senatorial decree. Previously, a ''provincia'' (task) expired with a magistracy; prorogation severed the old tightly-linked connection between magistrate and ''provincia''. While normally someone in the theatre or province was prorogued, one could also be prorogued by assignment of a former magistrate waiting around Rome for a triumph (still possessing ''imperium'') to new ''provincia'': e.g., when Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus and Quintus Marcius Rex, waiting around Rome for some three years for approval of triumphs, were assigned during the Catilinarian conspiracy to new ''provincia'' of Apulia and Faesulae respectively.

While modern scholars often suppose that prorogation was intended originally to ensure that an experienced commander with hands-on knowledge of the local situation could conclude a successful campaign, in practice the extension of command was subject to "unsteady ad-hoc politics." And "unusual political influence" was required for prorogations of longer than one year.

A Roman governor had the right, and was normally expected, to remain in his province until his successor arrived, even when he had not been prorogued. According to the '' lex Cornelia de maiestate'', passed following Sulla's dictatorship, a governor was then required to give up his province within 30 days. A prorogued magistrate could not exercise his ''imperium'' within Rome.

The nature of promagisterial ''imperium'' is also complicated by its relation to the celebrating of a triumph as awarded by the Senate. Before a commander could enter the city limits ('' pomerium'') for his triumph, he had to lay aside arms formally and ritually, that is, he had to re-enter society as a civilian. There are several early instances, however, of a commander celebrating a triumph during his two- or three-year term; it is possible that the triumph was held at the completion of his assignment and before he returned to the field with prorogued ''imperium''.

History

Emergence

In the Republic after 367 BC, only three magistrates held ''imperium''. At first, the appointment of '' dictatores'' and '' magistri equitum'' filled the need for additional military commanders.

The first recorded prorogation was that of the consul Quintus Publilius Philo in 327 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". Livy reports that legislation was then moved through the tribunes that "when Publilius' term expiredhe should continue to manage the campaign ''pro consule'' until he should bring the war with the Greeks to an end". This innovation permitted Philo to hold the military authority and responsibility of a magistrate while not actually being a magistrate. 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.

In the following decades, it became regular practice to prorogue consuls, with prorogation of praetors starting in 241 BC. During the 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''. In 307, Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus became the second magistrate to have his command prorogued. But in the years 296–295, 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.

In this early period, prorogued assignments, like the 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.

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). ''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". These ''privati cum imperio'' had titles ''pro consule'' or ''pro praetore'', in place of regular magistrates.

The first instance may have been in 215 BC after the losses at Trebia, Trasimene, and Cannae when Marcus Claudius Marcellus was elected suffect consul in the place of L Postyumius Albinus, deceased. However, he was forced to resign when the augurs 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. Some scholars reject this, arguing instead that Marcellus' just-completed praetorship meant he was just prorogued.

The clearest instance is in the assignment of P Cornelius Scipio (later ''Africanus'') to Spain in 211 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. After Scipio's victory in 206 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 BC made it possible to send annual magistrates. Generally, prorogation became almost the norm for the ''provinciae'' of Sicily, Sardinia, Hispania, and the naval fleets due to the lack of manpower in the leadership.

This innovation 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. 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: e.g., desires to attain a vaunted ''pro consule'' status.

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. The Senate stopped submitting decisions on prorogation of permanent ''provinciae'' to the people for ratification sometime in the 190s BC. Eventually all extensions of ''imperium'' were called ''prorogatio''. After the 190s BC, when the Senate no longer submitted its decisions on extending commands to a popular vote, the term ''prorogatio'' becomes a misnomer, since no '' rogatio'' (consultation of the people) was involved. 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.

In the late Republic

Prorogation takes on a new importance with the annexation of Macedonia and the Roman province of Africa in 146 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. 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. Prorogation became fully institutionalized, and even the ''praetor urbanus'' was sometimes prorogued. Governors who received established territorial provinces could expect longer tenures. The addition of the wealthy Asian province in 133 BC as a bequest of Attalus III put further pressure on the system, again without increasing the number of praetorships:

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. 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 (91–87 BC) made the granting of extra-magisterial command routine. When Sulla assumed the dictatorship in late 82 BC, the territorial provinces alone numbered ten, with possibly six permanent courts to be presided over in the city.

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". Pompey, for example, declined a province after his consulship in 70 BC until he was able to convince a friendly tribune to create an enormous command against the pirates in consequence of the lex Gabinia in 67 BC and, then, a similarly vast eastern command during the Third Mithridatic War the next year. 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. 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.

Nearing the end of the Republic, almost all magistrates were prorogued ''pro consule'', one of the few exceptions being a senatorial snub against Octavian in 43 BC when he was vested with ''imperium'' and prorogued ''pro praetore'', putting him lower in status than all other promagistrates.

See also

* Royal prerogative, a later medieval derivation and evolution of the term as method(s) of governance

Notes

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Roman law
Roman Republic
Military of ancient Rome
Ancient Roman governors