Praetorian Guard Questions

[D B Campbell]

What if a fragment was found belonging to Hyginus that stated there was 10 praetorian cohorts? What time frame would you assign Hyginus' camp to?

Hyginus (Ch. 30) lists 4 Praetorian cohorts in his (hypothetical?) army. Incidentally, just out of interest, he says that they get twice the space of legionaries, "because they use larger tents" (Ch. 6) -- so, not because their cohorts are bigger, for anyone who leapt at the chance that they might be milliary!

However, even if Hyginus had said that there were 10 Praetorian cohorts, it wouldn't alter the date range indicated by other elements in the text. The earliest suggested date is Domitianic (there is evidence of a tenth cohort late in DOmitian's reign), the favourite is Trajanic, and the latest is Marcus Aurelius -- so all within the heyday of the Praetorians, before the big Severan shake-up.

For Hyginus' camp, see: Ancient Warfare Magazine, Vol. III.3.

[Alexandr K]

Hello,

I have been reading various papers including the Osprey on the Praetorian Guard and I am wondering why most of the authors are suspicious about the size of the Praetorian Guard given in the ancient sources.

It is quite a complex issue and the sources are scarce and sometimes difficult to interpret. The size of the Augustan Guard was discussed before here.

I can't speak to it's quality and I haven't heard of the author (Sandra Bingham)...but there you go.

Sandra Bingham has written a PhD thesis about the Praetorian Guard, which can be downloaded for free (for example) here. So, you can have a look and judge the quality. I guess the book would largely be based on the PhD thesis.

The earliest suggested date is Domitianic (there is evidence of a tenth cohort late in DOmitian's reign), the favourite is Trajanic, and the latest is Marcus Aurelius -- so all within the heyday of the Praetorians, before the big Severan shake-up.

Actually many authors tried to date Pseudo-Hyginus work to the third century and some even as late as the turn of 3rd/4th century. Anyway, I think currently Trajanic period seems to be the most probable (although it is not certain).

Greetings,
Alexandr

[D B Campbell]

Actually many authors tried to date Pseudo-Hyginus work to the third century and some even as late as the turn of 3rd/4th century.

I had quite forgotten the nineteenth-century predilection for a later date (Mommsen, Marquardt, Droysen), revived (to some extent) by Grillone.

[antiochus]

Alexandr wrote:
Sandra Bingham has written a PhD thesis about the Praetorian Guard, which can be downloaded for free (for example) here.

Thanks for this link, it is greatly appreciated. My focus is not to determine how many praetorian cohorts there are for a given period but how they are organised and after unravelling Hyginus’ organisation mistakes, the praetorians = equitata miliariae. The difference between the praetorian cavalry and the cavalry of an auxiliary equitata miliariae is the praetorian cavalry follows the military organisation whereas the auxiliary cavalry follows the tribal organisation. This is what tripped up Hyginus. Anyway that is my findings.

[markhebb]

So I received my copy of Sandra Bingham's book and I must say I'm a little disappointed.

It's only 124 pages - the rest are the notes. At best it's a basic sketch of the guard's history - and it's very weak on the post Severan stuff. At best it's a good basic introduction to the Praetorian Guard - but not the comprehensive English monograph I was hoping for - Durry's book remains superior (I haven't read Passerini's)

ps to be fair she makes no claims to be writing the definitive work..I was just hoping for something far more detailed...