Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/680

Rh 656 P R M P R M court of the Hundred Men, which dealt especially with cases of inheritance ; the two trust praetors (pr&tores fideicomisaarii), appointed by Claudius to look after cases of trust estates, but reduced by Titus to one ; the ward praetor (prxtor tutelaris), appointed by Marcus Antoninus to deal with the affairs of minors ; and the liberation praetor (prsetor de liberalibus causis), who tried cases turn ing on the liberation of slaves. There is no evidence that the praitors continued to preside over the standing courts after the beginning of the 3d century A.D., and the foreign praetorship disappears about this time. 1 Even the juris diction of the city prsetor seems not to have survived the reforms of Diocletian, though the office itself continued to exist. But of the proctorships with special jurisdiction (especially the ward praetorship and the liberation proctor ship) some lasted into the 4th century and were copied in the constitution of Constantinople. Besides their judicial functions, the praetors, as colleagues of the consuls, possessed, though in a less degree, all the consular powers, which they regularly exercised in the absence of the consuls ; but in the presence of a consul they exercised them only at the special command either of the consul or, more usually, of the senate. Thus the prsetor possessed military power (imperium) ; even the city praetor, though attached by his office to Rome, could not only levy troops but also in certain circumstances take the command in person. As provincial governors the praetors had frequent occasion to exercise their military powers, and they were often accorded a triumph. The city praetor presided over popular assemblies for the election of certain inferior magistrates, but all the praetors officiating in Rome had the right to summon assemblies for the pur pose of legislation. In the absence of the consuls the city praetor, and in default of him the other praetors, were em powered to call meetings of the senate. Public religious duties, such as the fulfilment of state vows, the celebration of sacrifices and games, and the fixing of the dates of mov able feasts, probably only fell to the praetors in the absence of the consuls. But since in the early times the consuls as a rule spent only the first months of their year of office in Rome it is probable that a considerable share of religious business devolved on the city praetor ; this was certainly the case with the Festival of the Cross-roads (compitalia), and he directed the games in honour of Apollo from their institution in 212 B.C. Augustus in 22 B.C. placed the direction of all the popular festivals in the hands of the praetors, and it is not without significance that the praetors continued thus to minister to the pleasures of the Roman mob for centuries after they had ceased almost entirely to transact the business of the state. For the praetor as provincial governor, see PROVINCE. (j. G. FR.) PR/ETORIANS (prsetoriani) was the name borne by the body-guards of the Roman emperors. The name was derived from the praetorian cohort, a picked body of troops who in the time of the republic formed the guard of a general in command of an army, the old Latin name for a general being praetor and his quarters in the camp being known as the pr&torium. As the emperor was commander- in-chief the headquarters (pr&torium) were established at Rome, and one of the earliest measures of Augustus was the new organization of the guard. The command of the praetorians rested legally with the emperor, but after 2 B.C. it was practically exercised by one or more colonels chosen by the emperor with the title of &quot;praetorian praefects&quot; (prafecti prxtorio, see PREFECT). The praetorians were divided into cohorts of 1000 men each, horse and foot, and hence they are often referred to as the praetorian cohorts. 1 Marrjuardt conjectures with much probability that when Caracalla extended the Roman fran&amp;lt;-hise to the whole empire he at the same time abolished the foreign pnetorship. Augustus raised nine corps, of which he quartered three in different parts of Rome and the rest in neighbouring cities. One cohort kept guard in the palace. Under Tiberius the crafty and energetic praetorian praefect Sejanus collected the praetorians into a permanent fortified camp outside the Yiminalian Gate of Rome. Thus united they acquired and exercised the power of making and unmaking emperors. The number of the cohorts was raised temporarily by Vitel- lius to sixteen ; from 112 A.D. to the end of the 3d century, and probably to the time of Constantine, the number was ten. At first they were recruited exclusively from Italy, but afterwards from the Romanized provinces also of Spain, Noricum, and Macedonia. Their pay was nominally double, but really more than double, that of the legionaries ; 2 their period of service was shorter, being sixteen years instead of at least twenty ; and from the time of Claudius it was the custom of the emperors on their succession to the throne to purchase the favour of their powerful guards by a liberal donative. But the sense of their own power, to which these special privileges bore witness, fostered the pride, while the luxurious life of the capital relaxed the disci pline, of the praetorians. Their insolence culminated when they murdered the virtuous Pertinax, put the empire up to auction, and knocked it down to the highest bidder (193). In the same year they were disgraced and disbanded by Severus, only, however, to be replaced by a still more numer ous corps, 3 which was now recruited indifferently from all parts of the empire. Diocletian reduced their numbers, and they were finally suppressed by Constantine in 312. PR/ETORIUS, 4 MICHAEL (1571-1621), German musical historian, theorist, and composer, was bom at Kreuzberg in Thuringia on loth February 1571. He acted as kapell meister at Liineburg early in life, was engaged first as organist and later as kapellmeister and secretary to the duke of Brunswick, and was eventually rewarded for his long services with the priory of Rmgelheim, near Goslar. He died at Wolfenbiittel on loth February 1621. Of his very numerous compositions copies are now so scarce that it is doubtful whether a complete set is anywhere to be found. The most important are Polyhymnia (15 vols.), Musx Sionise, (16 vols.), and Musa Aonia (9 vols.), all written partly to Latin and partly to German words. But more precious than all these is the Syntagma mitsicum (3 vols. and a cahier of plates, 4to, Wittenberg and Wolfenbiittel, 1615-20). Only two copies of this very rare work are believed to exist in England, one in the library of the Rev. Sir F. A. Gore-Ouseley and the other in that of Mr Alfred Littleton. In the original prospectus of the work four volumes were promised, but it is certain that no more than three were ever published. The fourth volume mentioned in ForkePs catalogue is clearly nothing but the cahier of plates attached to vol. ii. 2 The legionaries received 10 asses daily, or 3600 asses ( = 225 denarii) annually ; the praetorians received twenty asses daily, or 7200 asses annually. But, whereas in paying the legionaries the as was reckoned at its current value of 16 to the denarius, in paying the praetorians it was reckoned at its old and higher value of 10 to the denarius, and hence the 7200 asses of a praetorian were equal to 11,520 asses at the current rate, or 720 denarii. This is Mommsen s highly ingenious and probable explanation of the apparent discrepancy between the state ments of Dio Cassius (liii. 11, 55) and Tacitus (Ann., i. 17). See Mar- quardt s RSmische Staatsvenoaltung, ii. p. 480. Pliny (N. I/., xxxiii. 45) states that after the value of the as was lowered it continued to be reckoned at its old value in the payment of soldiers. But by combin ing the statements of Suetonius (Cees., 26, and Domit., 7) we see that Julius Csesar, while he nominally and really raised the pay of the soldiers, paid it in asses of the current value, and hence after his time it was only the praetorians who retained the privilege of having their pay reckoned in asses of the old value (see Marquardt, op. tit., p. 95). 3 According to Herodian (iii. 13, 4) Severus increased the troops in Rome fourfold. 4 German Schultzor ScknUze (SchuUheiss), meaning the head-man of a township, Latinized into Praetor or Prsetorius. Many other members of the family of Praetorius were eminent as musicians.