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A Roman governor was an official either elected or appointed to be the chief adminstator of Roman law throughout one or more of Ancient Rome's many provinces. By the time of the early empire, there were two types of provinces (senatorial and imperial), and several classifications of governor.
See promagistrate for information on proconsuls and propraetors
Duties of the governor
The governor of any Roman province had many tasks to carry out during his administration.
Firstly, he was responsible for taxation and financial management. Depending on the basis of his appointment, he was either the Emperor's personal agent, or the Senate’s financial agent, and had to supervise the local authorities, the private tax collectors, and levy taxes. A governor could mint coins and negotiate with wealthy institutions such as temples and private money-lenders that could advance money. The governor was also the province's chief accountant. He inspected the books of major cities and various operations as well as supervising large-scale building projects throughout the province.
Aside from these financial duties, the governor was the province's chief judge. The governor had the sole right to impose capital punishment, and capital cases were normally tried before him. To appeal a governor's decision necessitated travelling to Rome and presenting one's case before either the Praetor Urbanus, or even the Emperor himself, an expensive, and thus rare, process. An appeal was unlikely to succeed anyway, as a governor wouldn’t generally take the chance of convicting someone contrary to the Emperor's wishes. The governor was also supposed to travel across his province to administer justice in the major towns where his attention was required.
Finally, and most importantly, he commanded the military forces within the province. In the more important provinces, this could consist of legions, but elsewhere, there were only auxiliaries. As a part of his standing orders the governor had the authority to use his legions to stamp out organized criminal gangs or rebels in the area without need for the Emperor's or Senate's approval.
Every governor had at his disposal a diversity of advisers and staff, who were known as his comites (Latin for "companions"); the number of these depended on the governor's social standing and rank. These comites would serve as the governor's executive council, with each supervising a different aspect of the province, and assisting the governor in decision making. In the provinces with a significant legionary presence, the governor's second-in-command was usually a quaestor, a man elected in Rome and sent to the province to serve a mainly financial role, but who could command the military with the governor's approval. In other provinces, governors themselves appointed non-magistrate prefects or procurators to govern a small part of the province and act as their second-in-command.
Republican governors
During the time of the Roman Republic, the Senate was in charge of appointing governors to Rome's provinces. This was done by appointing promagistates to serve, either by random casting of lots, or by senatus consultum (advice of the Senate); however, these appointments did not strictly conform with the law, and could be overruled by Roman assemblies.
The governor’s level of authority was determined by which type of imperium he possessed. Most provinces were governed by propraetors who had served an annual term in the praetorship the year before. The provinces governed by propraetors were usually near the Mediterranean, or landlocked where chances of revolt or invasion were small. But in some cases propraetors would be given command of legions instead of the provincial militia. Examples of propraetorian provinces were Hispania Baetica and Numidia.
However, provinces that lay on the Republic’s boarders, thereby requiring a permanent military garrison, were governed by proconsuls who had served a term as consul the year before their governorship. They were given the authority to command provinces with actual Roman legions, rather than just using the militia. Examples of proconsular provinces were Britannia, Germania, and Dacia.
These promagistrates held equal authority with other magistrates with the same level of imperium, and was attended by the same number of lictors, and generally speaking had autocratic power within his province. A propraetor or proconsul with imperium appointed to govern a province, therefore, had absolute authority within his capacity as governor of that province. A provincial governor had almost totally unlimited authority, and frequently extorted vast amounts of money from the provincial population — but his imperium granted him total immunity from prosecution during his term in office.
Imperial governors
Imperial provinces
After Octavian (Augustus) established the principate, the Emperor himself, as holding imperial maius, was the most senior governor of all of Rome's provinces, but rarely governed the provinces himself. Instead, the Emperor would appoint legates to govern any of the provinces with legions stationed within its borders; these are known as imperial provinces. The Emperor had sole say in the appointing of these governors. Legates were only the representative of the governor, but officially they were lower in rank because they were subordinates of the Emperor, who was theoretically the actual governor of any given province.
The principate did not totally do away with the system of selecting proconsuls and propraetors. In provinces with one legion, a legate bearing praetorian imperium, thus being a propraetor, not only governed the province in the Emperor’s name, but also controlled the legion himself. However, in provinces with more than one legion, each legion was commanded by its own legate with praetorian imperium, while the province as a whole was commanded by a legate with consular imperium, who had general command over the entire army stationed there, as well as administering the province as a proconsul.
These governorships were completely at the whim of the Emperor and could serve anywhere from 1 to 5 years.
Senatorial provinces
While the Emperor had sole authority in provinces with legions, senatorial provinces were provinces where the Senate had the right to appoint governors. These provinces were away from the Empire's borders and free from the likelihood of rebellion, and so had few, if any, legions stationed in them (thus lessening the chance the Senate might try to seize power from the Emperor).
These senatorial provinces were under the direct control of a proconsular senator, with little need for intervention by the Emperor (although the Emperor had the power to appoint these governors if he wished). Most senatorial provinces, since they were not under the direct authority of the Emperor, did not grant the governor legions to command. There was one exception to this rule, the province of Africa, where there was always at least a single legion to protect the province from Berber tribes.
Augustus decreed that there would be at least ten senatorial provinces. Though all ten were "proconsular", only two of these provinces (Asia and Africa), were actually governed by senators with proconsular imperium, the remaining eight being governed by propraetors. The two proconsular governors served for one year, while the eight praetors served typically for up to 3 years. Each of these men had six lictors who served as bodyguards and also as a symbol of authority and a mark of their position.
Equestrian procurator
The Emperor also had under his control a number of smaller, but potentially difficult provinces that did not need an entire legion. These provinces were put under the control of governors of equestrian status. New conquests generally fell into this equestrian category but most were later changed in status to reflect the changing conditions of Roman's growing empire. Thus, a province would become upon conquest a procuratorial province until it was decided that it should become either an imperial or senatorial province and thus governed by either a propraetor or proconsul. Like the other imperial provinces, the equestrian governors could serve any length of time up to 5 years, or even longer.
Much like the senatorial province of Africa, the equestrian province of Aegyptus (Egypt) was an exception to the general rule of legions only being stationed in imperial provinces. Egypt was not a normal province like any other, it was considered the personal possession of the Emperor, and its governor, the praefectus aegypti, was considered the highest ranking equestrian post during the early empire. Later, the post would fall second to that of the praetorian command, but its position remained highly prestigious.
Though the practice of appointing equestrians to help manage provinces officially began with Augustus, governors from years before had appointed procurators to held them govern. However, it was not until the reign of Claudius that these procurators received the powers of a governor. Though by definition the procurators were prefects, a procuratorship was a more formal way of denoting a prefect’s authority to govern. It is important to note that procurators were not magistrates, so did not own imperium, and merely exercised the Emperor’s, or governor's, authority with his approval.
Late Imperial Governors
Under the Dominate, i.e. the Late Roman Empire, the Roman Emperor Diocletian began reforms of the provincial administration that were completed under the Emperor Constantine the Great. Diocletian set up 12 dioceses (later several were split; see under Roman province), originally two to four for each of the four co-emperors under the shortlived Tetrarchy (two senior Augusti, each above a Caesar), each governed by a Vicarius (a form of Governor-General). Each diocese comprised several Roman provinces, each under the authority of a provincial governor (see above), of various ranks and carrying a series of titles, including republican relics such as Proconsul and novelties such as Corrector provinciae, Moderator Provinciae, Praeses provinciae. The Vicarius's authority was supreme within his dioceses, only being vetoed by the Praetorian Prefect (see below) or the Emperor himself.
Also, since the reign of Constantine, the governors lost their military command (and some related competences) to new, strictly military officers. Within each of the provinces, the governor was assisted by a dux (Latin: leader) whose job was to manage the legions garrisoned within the province. When it came to the diocesan level, another dux was appointed to command the legion(s) within each diocese. Soon the ducatus (military territory of a dux) would however be determined independently, in several cases comprising several provinces, while at higher territorial levels military commands were created under the titles of (military) Comes and Magister militum
Emperor Constantine completed Diocletian's reforms and organized the Roman Empire into four pretorian prefectures, actually the former territorial circonscriptions of the former four imperial tetrarchs to which each praetorian prefect had acted as chief of staff: the Prefecture of the Gauls, the Prefecture of Italy and Africa, the Prefecture of Illyrium, and the Prefecture of Oriens, with each administrated by an imperially appointed Praetorian prefect. The Prefect of each Prefecture was the highest civil service echelon, being subordinate only to the Emperor(s) (soon there were two, Eastern to become Byantine and Western in Rome, later in Ravenna, each inheriting two prefectures as Augustus). The Prefect did not moderate between the various governors and vicarii and the Emperor, but acted as the Emperor's representative and had the authority to issue orders and administor justice within his Prefecture.
As within the dioceses level, the civil and military parts of the Prefecture were divided between the Praetorian Prefect as the highest civil office and the Magister Militum as the highest military office. The Magister Militum was identified as to which Prefecture he belonged by the territorial name following his title, such as Magister Militum per Gallias. There was, however, one supreme Magister Militum that was the most senior military rank in the (soon an) entire empire, subordinate only to the Emperor.
- A list of the provinces within the dioceses and the dioceses within the prefectures can be found on the Roman provinces page.
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