Praetorian Guard

[dwkay57]

Has anyone carried out any research into the structure of the Praetorian Guard during the early Empire (i.e. Claudius to Hadrian)?

Checking my own resources I seem to have come up with various versions over time:

Graham Webster (in the Roman Imperial Army) describes it as being of 9 cohorts each of 500 men
Phil Barker (in Armies and Enemies of Imperial Rome) describes each cohort(but doesn't seem to give a total number of cohorts) as being 6 80-man centuries strong, supported by 90 cavalry and commanded by a Tribune. This seems to match the description on Wikipedia that describes each unit almost as an equivalent to a cohort equitata.
Adrian Goldsworthy (in The Complete Roman Army) advises that under the earlier emperors it consisted of 9 cohorts of 480 men but that later emperors increased their size to milliary cohorts, each commanded by a Tribune and the whole guard by two prefects. He mentions that there was cavalry attached to the guard but only that they morphed into the Equites Singularis Augusti.
Peter Connolly (in The Roman Army) gives a history which summarises as: Augustus formed them of 9 cohorts (4,500men) with two commanding prefects; Tiberius reduced it to one prefect and raised the number of cohorts to 12 (about 6,000men); Vitellius raised their number to 16,000; Vespasian reduced it to 9 cohorts and Domitian increased it to 10 cohorts.
Mark Cartwright (in his article on www.ancient.eu) matches (mostly) the Connolly history line indicating that by the time of Vitellius all the cohorts were milliary. He also seems to suggest that the cavalry wing was a separate unit.

Be interested to know if anyone has any further thoughts or information.

[Duncan Head]

Sandra Bingham's book on the Praetorians is the latest I've read on the subject. She collects the evidence and comes IIRC to the conclusion that there are a lot of things we can't be sure about ...

I thought we'd discussed the number of cohorts before now on this forum, but if so, I can't find it.

[Duncan Head]

I was probably thinking of an old ancmed discussion that starts at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ancmed/conversations/messages/81203

[dwkay57]

Thanks for the feedback Duncan. My wife's organising a copy of the Bingham book for me via the Library service.

[Tim]

You could always get De La Bedoyere's new book on the subject.  According to the review the this week's Sunday Telegraph his answers is 'we are not really sure/we don't really know'.  Don't have a look to the review but below tells you some more about the book.

https://www.bookdepository.com/Praetorian-Guy-De-La-Bedoyere/9780300218954

Don't worry if you don't like it, Guy's ego is unlikely to be too badly brused...

[dwkay57]

Yes I spotted Guy`s book in Waterstones the other day and did have a quick flick through - especially one of the appendices that dealt with structure and organisation.

He seemed to give various options, including interestingly a milliara option where each cohort had six centurions but double size centuries. This seems out of line with what I thought was the standard legionary model of 5 double strength centuries and the auxiliary structure of 10 standard sized centuries. But then our knowledge does change!

[dwkay57]

I've just finished reading Sandra Bingham's book (courtesy of an inter-library loan) and her general conclusion is that is most likely, for most of the time, the guard consisted of 9 milliari cohorts each of 1,000 men. She also mentions - briefly at one point - that each cohort had 300 cavalry attached to them. It appears that this cavalry was separate from other guard cavalry units and gave each cohort the capacity to act independently on detached duties.

I might try and get hold of a copy of the De La Bedoyere book at sometime just for comparison.

Bingham refers quite often to "Riding for Caesar" by Speidel. Has anyone read this and does it shed any light on anything that might be useful for elite Roman cavalry units?

[Duncan Head]

Bingham refers quite often to "Riding for Caesar" by Speidel. Has anyone read this and does it shed any light on anything that might be useful for elite Roman cavalry units?

Yes, I've read Speidel. Funnily enough I was reminded of it just recently, because Pearson's Max Thrax book refers to Speidel when mentioning the inscription of a soldier of the Equites Singulares who served in the troop of Iulius Maximinus - possibly the future Emperor. It's a very good book - Speidel on Romans is usually good value. It is principally about the Eq. Sing., but it does discuss other elite cavalry units including the Singulares' predecessors the Germani corporis custodes, and the Praetorian cavalry do get mentioned a good few times. There are some nice plates, particularly photos of some of the guardsmen's grave monuments.

[dwkay57]

Thanks Duncan, I've just finished reading the Speidel book and also the De La Bedoyere one on the Praetorians.

I'm taking in what I have found out and how it might apply to armies on the tabletop in terms of general's guards. Whether there is a Slingshot article in it is unclear as yet.....

One of the interesting bits in De Le Bedoyere's book is that the current rapid administration changes in the US Whitehouse are nothing to what seemed to happen in ancient Rome.

[dwkay57]

There was an article (as attached), but I'm not too convinced of its merits at present.

Any thoughts?

[Duncan Head]

A bit simplistic, not crystal-clear precisely what period it's talking about, but nothing too outrageous.

[dwkay57]

Yes, it did seem a bit boring as I was writing it....

But at least I found out what I needed for my own purposes, although I still have to find someone who makes the models in 6mm....