Word Finder - praetor

definition

(history) The title designating a Roman administrative official whose role changed over time:

definition

(by extension) A high civic or administrative official, especially a chief magistrate or mayor. Sometimes used as a title.

definition

(translating Italian "pretore") The title of the chief magistrate, the mayor, and/or the podestà in Palermo, in Verona, and in various other parts of 17th- and 18th-century Italy.

He was praetor in 75, governor of Sicily 74, consul 71.

In 58 he was praetor, sided with Pompey in the Civil War, and after his defeat was banished by Caesar, and died in exile.

The agency by which these principles were introduced was the edicts of the praetor, an annual proclamation setting forth the manner in which the magistrate intended to administer the law during his year of office.

The place of the praetor was occupied in English jurisprudence.

The native tribes opposed the Romans, but were conquered after several campaigns; 8 the island became a province under the government of a praetor or propraetor, to whose jurisdiction Corsica was added soon afterwards.

Aemilius Scaurus, praetor in 53 B.C. Cicero, speaking no doubt to his brief, gives them a very bad character, adding " ignoscent alii viri boni ex Sardinia; credo enim esse quosdam ".

Praetor ius's Cammerton, or chamber pitch, formulated in his diagrams for voices and instruments, is, he says, a whole tone higher; equivalent, therefore, to a' 475.65.

Having served in the army in Spain and Sardinia, he became curule aedile, praetor and (after an unsuccessful attempt in 117) consul in 115.

In 61 Gabinius, then praetor, endeavoured to win the public favour by providing games on a scale of unusual splendour, and in 58 managed to secure the consulship, not without suspicion of bribery.

In the reign of Tiberius he held the office of praetor, and was appointed to the superintendence of the roads and bridges.

A hurriedly equipped fleet sent out from Carthage under Hanno was intercepted by the praetor Publius Valerius Falto and totally defeated (battle of the Aegates Islands, March io, 241).

Servilius Caepio (praetor iio), was to be employed.

As praetor in 227, he gained the lasting gratitude of the people of his province (Sicily) by his excellent administration.

P. Sextilius, pro praetor Africae, according to coins of Hadrumetum of the year 94 B.C. The towns which had fought on the side of the Romans during the Third Punic War were declared civitates liberae, and became exceedingly prosperous.

He was the first Parthian king who entered into negotiations with Rome, then represented by Sulla, praetor of Cilicia (92 B.C.).

Its importance and historic associations naturally marked it out as the residence of the Roman praetor or governor of Sicily.

Under Augustus the office lost much of its importance, its juridical functions and the care of the games being transferred to the praetor, while its city responsibilities were limited by the appointment of a praefectus urbi.

In 70 he was city praetor, and five years later was sent into Britain to succeed Petilius Cerealis as governor of that island.

It was in this lofty rock-girt hollow that the gladiator Spartacus was besieged by the praetor Claudius Pulcher; he escaped by twisting ropes of vine branches and descending through unguarded fissures in the crater-rim.

Kunze's suggestion is far more probable that it was used at the baptism of Nektarius, praetor of the city, who was elected third president of the council while yet unbaptized.

Praetor in 60, he obtained the governorship of Hispania Citerior (19) through the support of Caesar, to whom he was also indebted for his election to the consulship (J7).

Hence so long as the consuls were the only higher magistrates their frequent absence often rendered the appointment of a praefect necessary, but after the institution of the praetorship (367 B.C.) the necessity only arose exceptionally, as it rarely happened that both the consuls and the praetor were absent simultaneously.

When praetor he forbade the carrying of arms by slaves, and with his.

They were to be elected for five years by seventeen of the tribes chosen by lot from the thirty-five; the imperium was to be conferred upon them by the lex curiata, together with judicial powers and the rank of praetor.

The praetor, who had the arrangement of all trials or private suits and the formal appointment of judges for them, referred the great majority of such cases for decision to a judge who was styled usually judex but sometimes arbiter.

Apart from this system of compulsory reference by the praetor, Roman law recognized a voluntary reference (compromissum) to an arbiter or arbitrator by the parties themselves.

If three arbitrators were appointed, a majority could decide; in case of two being appointed and not agreeing, the praetor would compel them to.

Gaius Cassius, governor of Cisalpine Gaul, and the praetor Gnaeus Manlius, who attempted to stop him, were defeated at Mutina.

The conduct of the war was now entrusted to the praetor Marcus Licinius Crassus.

The province was ruled by a praetor sent yearly from Rome.

The praetor, after the occupation of Syracuse, dwelled there in the palace of Hiero, as in the capital of the island.

To the Gothic count again succeeded, under Justinian, a Roman praetor, in Greek 6rparrj'yos.

They were originally a body of jurors which gave a verdict under the presidency of the praetor, but eventually became annual minor magistrates of the Republic, elected by the Comitia Tributa.

In 66 B.C. he was praetor, and was called upon to hear cases of extortion.

Pomponius Atticus, was born about 102 B.C. He was aedile in 67, praetor in 62, and for the three following years propraetor in Asia, where, though he seems to have abstained from personal aggrandizement, his profligacy and ill-temper gained him an evil notoriety.

His distinctive title, was the city praetor.

To this new magistrate the title of "praetor" was thenceforward properly restricted.'

About 242 the increase of a foreign population in Rome necessitated the creation of a second praetor for the decision of suits between foreigners (peregrini) or between citizens and foreigners.

This praetor was known at a later time as the "foreign praetor" (praetor peregrinus).

To meet this increase of business the tenure of office of the praetors and also of the consuls was practically prolonged from one to two years, with the distinction that in their second year of office they bore the titles of propraetor and proconsul instead of praetor and consul.

A praetor was essentially a civil judge, and as such he was accustomed at or before his entry on office to publish an edict setting forth the rules of law and procedure by which he intended to be guided in his decisions.

As these rules were often accepted by his successors, the praetor thus acquired an almost legislatorial power, and his edicts, thus continued, corrected and amplified from year to year, became, under the title of the "perpetual" edicts, one of the most important factors in moulding Roman law.

Their tendency was to smooth away the occasional harshness and anomalies of the civil law by substituting rules of equity for the letter of the law, and in this respect the Roman praetor has been compared to the English chancellor.

Hitherto the praetor had conducted the preliminary inquiry as to whether an action would lie, and had appointed for the actual trial of the case a deputy, whom he instructed in the law applicable to the case and whose decisions he enforced.

The proceedings before the praetor were technically known as jus in distinction from judicium, which was the actual trial before the deputy judge.

Under the empire various special functions were assigned to certain praetors, such as the two treasury praetors (praetores aerarii),3 appointed by Augustus in 23; the spear praetor (praetor haslarius), who presided over the court of the Hundred Men, which dealt especially with cases of inheritance; the two trust praetors (praetores fideicommissarii), appointed by Claudius to look after cases of trust estates, but reduced by Titus to one; the ward praetor (praetor tutelaris), appointed by Marcus Aurelius to deal with the affairs of minors; and the liberation praetor (praetor de liberalibus causis), who tried cases turning on the liberation of slaves.'

Thus the praetor 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.

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 purpose of legislation.

In the absence of the consuls the city praetor, and in default of him the other praetors; were empowered to call meetings of the senate.

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.