A. Proconsular Imperium for Praetorian Commanders?
Since the publication in 1950 of W. F. Jashemski's fine study of the early history of imperium pro consule and pro praetore , it appears to have been generally accepted that the proconsular imperium was often or regularly conferred on commanders of praetorian rank sent out to provinciae in Spain, Macedonia, and Asia.[1] Yet shortly before Jashemski's book appeared, T. R. S. Broughton had presented cogent arguments against the reality of the construct—the praetor pro consule —that T. Mommsen and Jashemski posited.[2] Broughton noted that the title praetor pro consule never appears unambiguously; certainly in the triumphal fasti , there are many commanders of praetorian rank who are designated pro consule , but never praetor pro consule . Mommsen, and later Jashemski, set great store by the fact that praetorian triumphatores from Spain and Macedonia are
so often given the title pro consule . But Broughton rightly noted that praetors could receive the proconsular imperium upon prorogation;[3] and the praetorian triumphatores from Spain and Macedonia are hardly likely to have managed to reach their province, win their victories, and enjoy their triumphs all in the year of their praetorship. Therefore the evidence of the triumphal fasti , on which Jashemski and Mommsen chiefly relied, is irrelevant for the question of the level of their imperium on their departure for the province. Broughton concluded: "The indications therefore favor the view that a praetor who received a prorogued command frequently received upon prorogation the imperium pro consule but was unlikely to possess it during his praetorship."[4]
Two rare cases in which our evidence is a bit more illuminating than usual support Broughton's hypothesis against that of Mommsen and Jashemski. Two praetors sent to Spain in 180, Ti. Sempronius Gracchus and L. Postumius Albinus, were prorogued in 179 with propraetorian imperium , then in 178 with proconsular imperium ; in 178 they triumphed pro consule and are duly counted by Jashemski as praetors with proconsular imperium .[5] But here manifestly proconsular imperium came only with their second prorogation. Secondly, in 112 the Senate decreed that a settlement mediated in the winter of 119-118 by a commander in Macedonia, Cn. Cornelius Sisenna, should stand. The decree referred to Sisenna as
.[6] The Senate was hardly confused about Sisenna's status; rather, it was careful to list the two titles that he would have held successively, praetor, then, upon prorogation, pro consule .[7] A parallel for the formula is provided by Syll3 683, lines 54-55 and 63-65, where the terms laid down by the Senate for the settlement of the land dispute between Messenia and the Lacedaemonians is quoted: those should possess the land who held it .[8]
Since the list of triumphs does not bear on our question, then, the only significant evidence for the view that praetors sent to certain provinces regularly received augmented imperium is Plutarch's note that as a special
honor L. Aemilius Paulus was sent to Spain in 191 as praetor but with more than the customary six lictors
—so presumably with proconsular imperium (Aem . 4.2).[9] But the strength of this straw in the wind is weakened by Livy's failure to mention anything of this in his notice on provincial commands for the year 36.2.8-12). In any case Plutarch stresses that this was a special token of honor to Paulus personally; even if he should be taken fully at his word, this would not imply that this was regular practice—rather the contrary.
The lack of any reliable attestation of a praetor in his term of office holding imperium pro consule , combined with the worthlessness of the fasti triumphales for our purposes and the indications in our evidence that associate conferral of proconsular imperium on praetors with prorogation rather than with some occasion before departure for the province, leads me to conclude that in the current state of the evidence Broughton's hypothesis is far more probable than that of Mommsen and Jashemski.