Governor

A governor is also a device that regulates the speed of a machine. See Governor (device).

Roman empires and legacy

In ancient Rome

From the creation of the earliest Roman subject provinces a governor was appointed each year to administer each of them. The core function of a Roman governor was as a magistrate or judge, and the management of taxation and public spending in their area.

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Under the Republic and the early Empire, however, a governor also commanded military forces in his province. Republican governors were all men who had served in senior magistracies (the consulate or praetorship) in Rome in the previous year, and carried related titles as governor (proconsul or propraetor). The first Emperor, Augustus (who acquired or settled a number of new territories), divided the provinces into two categories; the traditionally prestigious governorships remained as before (in what have become known as "senatorial" provinces), while in a range of others he retained the formal governorships himself, delegating the actual task of administration to appointees (usually with the title legatus Augusti, although some small provinces received governors with other titles such as procurator).

Related Topics:
Consul - Praetor

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A special case was Egypt, a rich 'private' domain and vital granary, where the Emperor almost inherited the theocratic status of a Pharaoh. The Emperor was represented there by a governor sui generis styled Praefectus Augustalis (the very title evokes the religious cult of the Emperor).

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Diocletian and Constantine in the fourth century carried out a root and branch reorganisation of the administration. This had two main features:

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• Provinces were divided up and became much more numerous; they were then grouped into dioceses, and the dioceses in turn into prefectures;
• Military responsibilities were removed from governors and given to new officials called comes or dux.

In addition, Italy was brought into the system for the first time.

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The prestige governorships of Africa and Asia remained with the title proconsul, and the special right to refer matters directly to the Emperor; the Praefectus Augustalis in Alexandria and the Comes Orientis in Antioch also retained special titles. Otherwise the governors of provinces had various titles without obvious logic, some known as consularis, some as corrector, some as praeses. Apart from Egypt and the East (Oriens - viz greater Syria), each diocese was directed by a governor known as a vicarius. The prefectures were directed by praefecti praetorio (a role transformed from a very different one in the early Empire).

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Byzantium

This system survived with few significant changes until the collapse of the empire in the West, and in the East the breakdown of order with the Persian and Arab invasions of the seventh century. At that stage a new kind governor emerged, the Strategos ("general" in Greek): a role leading the themes which replaced provinces at this point, and involving a return to the amalgamation of civil and military office which had been the practice under the Republic and the early Empire.

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Legacy

While the Roman administration in the West was largely destroyed in the barbarian invasions, its model was remembered, and would again be very influential through two particular vehicles: Roman law and the Christian Church.

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