Historians define the Praetorian Guard as a commissioned force, since it was founded by Augusto, of the emperor’s personal protection in the ‘urbs’ and on the battlefield. Although, according to him Tacit in its ‘Annals’, the task of maintaining order in the capital, putting down riots and investigating possible conspiracies also fell to its members. They were the elite of the legions. In return, their responsibility and their good training earned them certain perks: they served a shorter time – sixteen years –, received a more substantial pay upon discharge – 4,000 sesterces more than their colleagues – and their salary was the best in the entire Roman army.
Today there is no doubt as to what year the Praetorian Guard was founded. Dion Casio confirms in ‘Roman History’ that it was lit in 27 AD But its most remote origin has become a great enigma. And one of the experts who has done the most research to remove the shadows that exist around this mystery has been the historian and archaeologist Arturo Sanchez Sanz. In his magnum opus, ‘Praetorians’ (The Sphere), he analyzes the possibility that the seeds of unity were planted during the Republican era, long before Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with the XIII Gemina, his most loyal legion, and establish a dictatorship that would mutate, in the long run, into an empire.
Hispanic stronghold
There are as many theories about the origin of the Praetorian Guard as there were battles won by the Roman legions. Although among the most striking is the one that affirms that it was precisely in Hispania where they saw the light. To know it, it is necessary to go back in time to the year 154 BC, when the city of Segeda (in Zaragoza) breached the treaty it had signed with the Senate by extending its wall by some eight kilometres. The excuse was perfect for Rome, which sent the consul Fulvio Nobilior along with 30,000 soldiers to the peninsula to pacify the area and, incidentally, seize the territories of that city.
The arrival of this contingent made the inhabitants of Segeda request asylum in the fortified Numancia, which, until then, had stayed out of the confrontation. This is how the city became one of the nerve centers of the resistance against Rome. Nobilior surrounded the city and, although he failed to take it, his victories in nearby towns (and those of his successor, Claudio Marcelo) forced the Celtiberians to sign peace in the year 152 BC. Everything seemed to be over, but the treaty was brief. That same year, the Lusitanian Viriato fanned the flame of the contest, which led to the umpteenth armed confrontation.
In the almost two decades that followed, a huge number of consuls paraded through Hispania from Rome. All of them, with the aim of destroying the rebels at any price. But each one more clumsy than the last. The height of incapacity came from the hands of Cayo Hostilio Mancino in 137 BC. This ruler not only failed to conquer Numancia, but was forced to surrender when only 4,000 Numantinos surrounded his camp and threatened to annihilate his men. The humiliation was such that Rome forced him to parade naked in front of the walls of Numancia to punish him for his clumsiness.
strange theory
In the end, from Italy they sent Publio Cornelio Scipio Emiliano, the victor of Carthage in the Third Punic War, to the Peninsula in 134 BC. Apiano, the most prominent chronicler of the Hispanic conflicts, confirmed in his writings that “the people, already tired of the war against the Numantinos, which dragged on and turned out to be much more difficult than they expected,” selected this soldier “to act as the consulate again in the idea that it was the only one capable of winning ». To his misfortune, he came across a country suffocated by debt, short of soldiers and without a spare coin.
It was impossible to recruit a new army. For this reason, Scipio resorted to a somewhat extravagant solution, but which, in the long run, proved key to not squeezing the ‘eternal urbs’ even more. Apiano himself explained it this way in his texts:
«He did not form any army from the lists of citizens enrolled in military service, since there were many wars in hand and there were large numbers of men in Iberia. However, with the consent of the Senate, he took some volunteers who had been sent to him by some cities and kings by reason of personal ties of friendship, and five hundred clients and friends of Rome, whom he enrolled in a company and called the company. of the Friends. All of them, numbering 4,000 in all, he placed under the command of his niece Buteon and he, with a few, advanced towards Iberia to join the army, for he had heard that he was full of idleness.” .
The Praetorian Guard, proclaiming Claudius emperor, by Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Sánchez subscribes that thisa group of friends‘ was made up of thousands of volunteers from many noble Roman and allied families linked to the ‘the genus Cornelia‘ or to Scipio Emiliano himself for ties of friendship or clientele. They had no obligation to go to the peninsula, but they did it out of conviction. Inside the camp they placed their tents around the ‘headquarters‘, the accommodation and office of the general in command, due to its obvious proximity to the victor of the Third Punic War. This fact, in the words of the author, has caused this unit to be traditionally associated with the future Praetorian Guard.
Reality or fiction? Sánchez is in favor of the latter. As he argues in his essay, the differences between the two units are too great to support this theory. To begin with, the number of members of the ‘cohors amicorum’ was much greater than that of the Praetorian Guard. And, of course, they did not perform the same tasks that she did. “They acted, mainly, as an entourage and, perhaps, those closest to them would form part of the high command as advisers,” reveals the Spaniard.
In turn, the bulk of its members were horsemen, and not infantry. Finally, “they did not depend financially on a salary or their share of the booty, but on the gifts of their employer (Sir)».
The biggest difference, however, was that the ‘cohors amicorum’ was not responsible for protecting the life of Scipio Aemiliano. “They carried out the most varied functions such as doctors, augurs, scholars… so it does not seem that both were the same unit,” adds the expert. As a curiosity, the possibility is considered that Polybiusalso a chronicler and historian, accompanied the soldier to Hispania.
Sánchez is not the only one who is against the theory that the ‘cohors amicorum’ was the seed of the Praetorian Guard, Adolph Schulten is of the same opinion. The 19th century archaeologist and historian is in favor of the fact that this unit could have been an adaptation of the royal regiment of the Macedonian kings that participated in the campaign against Perseus.