The Rise and Fall of The Praetorian Guard

THE PRAETORIAN GUARD WERE AN ELITE UNIT WITHIN THE IMPERIAL ARMY, SERVING PRIMARILY AS PERSONAL PROTECTORS AND INTELLIGENCE OPERATIVES FOR THE ROMAN EMPERORS.

The roots of the guard can be found during the Roman Republic, when soldiers served as protectors for Roman generals and important figures, or as elite guards for military praetors.

High-ranked generals with imperium held public office by serving as a magistrate or promagistrate. They were assigned a civil servant, lictors, to serve as an attendant and bodyguard. Where no personal bodyguard was assigned, senior field officers safeguarded themselves with temporary bodyguard units of selected soldiers.

Around 40 BC, Octavian, who would later become Emperor Caesar Augustus, installed praetorians within the pomerium (a religious boundary around the city of Rome), the first example of troops being permanently garrisoned in Rome proper.

Members of the guard accompanied Augustus on active campaigns, protecting the civic administrations and rule of law. At camp, the cohors praetoria (a cohort of praetorians guarding the commander), were posted near the praetorium, the tent of the commander, which the guard is believed to be named after.

After the construction of Rome’s Praetorian camp known as the Castra Praetoria around 23 BC, their role extended to escorting the emperor and the members of the imperial family, and to serve as a policing force during times of riot.

According to the Roman historian and politician, Tacitus, the guard around this time numbered nine Praetorian cohorts (4500 men, the equivalent of a legion), however, an inscription from near the end of Augustus’s rule suggests that their numbers were briefly increased to twelve.

The Praetorian Guard, like all legionaries, shared similar insignia, mainly on their shields. Praetorian Guard shields included wings and thunderbolts, referring to Jupiter, and also uniquely included scorpions, stars and crescents.

The first military engagement of the Praetorian Guard took place during the mutinies of Pannonia and the mutinies of Germania. Drusus Julius Caesar, son of Tiberius, accompanied by two Praetorian cohorts, the Praetorian Cavalry, and Imperial German Bodyguards, suppressed the mutinies of Pannonia. Germanicus, later known as Germanicus Julius Caesar, led a force of legions and detachments of the Praetorian Guard in a two-year campaign in Germania against the uprising.

In the three centuries that followed, the guard influenced imperial politics by overthrowing emperors and proclaiming the successor. Members of the guard were also directly involved in the assassination of emperors, such as: Aurelian, Balbinus, Caligula, Caracalla, Commodus, Elagabalus, Galba, Pupienus, Pertinax, Philip II, and Probus.

In AD 305, Diocletian and Maximian abdicated, and the former Caesares, Constantius and Galerius became Augusti. Although two sons of emperors, Constantine I and Maxentius were eligible, they were passed over for a new tetrarchy, and Valerius Severus and Maximinus Daza were appointed Caesars.

Severus planned to disband the Praetorian Guard on the orders of Galerius, resulting in the guard giving their allegiance to Maxentius and proclaiming him emperor. By AD 312, Constantine I marched on Rome with a force of 40,000 soldiers to eliminate Maxentius, facing off against an army that encompassed the bulk of the Praetorian Guard garrisoned in Rome at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge on the River Tiber.

Contemporary accounts record Maxentius’s forces being pushed back against the river and retreating across the bridge. The weight of soldiers fleeing caused the bridge to collapse, stranding elements of the guard on the northern bank of the river who were either killed or taken prisoner.

Lucius Caecilius Firmianus, a Christian author and advisor to Constantine recorded the events: “The bridge in his rear was broken down. At sight of that the battle grew hotter. The hand of the Lord prevailed, and the forces of Maxentius were routed. He fled towards the broken bridge; but the multitude pressing on him, he was driven headlong into the Tiber [drowned].”

Maxentius’ body was fished out of the Tiber and decapitated, and his head was paraded through the streets of Rome. Supporters of Maxentius were eliminated and the Praetorian Guard and Imperial Horse Guard were disbanded. The remaining guard were sent in exile to the corners of the empire, and the Castra Praetoria was dismantled in a grand gesture that marked the end of the Praetorians.

with @hurtbywhisperedmuses

Lucifer: I am evil, fear me. I can -

Chris: Cowboy cosplay? Really? Big bad Satan's got horses and a taste for roadside lemonade.

Lucifer: CHRIS.

UUUGHHHHH brain full of Narzissenkreuz Institute lore.

tired and thinking too much about things in my mind askew but also suddenly wondering what annerose was supposed to represent in reinhard’s entire worldview. even though she’s been freed from the tower she must exist only as the proof of reinhard’s noble act: without him she would be living among the vengeful and gluttonous nobles, unlike now, where she is still living with the same trappings of royalty but it’s ok because the people don’t have bad ideologies i guess. was she even a person before reinhard’s career really began to take off. every time she’s on screen it feels like we’re looking at the madonna, some otherworldly presence unspoiled by the grime of human history (prime example is when hilda first meets annerose in her secluded cottage, the place is so romanticized it feels unreal, even unnatural). and the stiltedness i think comes from the fact that we know that none of this is true. annerose was essentially sold into being the emperor’s concubine. in its most literal sense she isn’t a virgin, isn’t some “untouched, innocent” woman who must not know of the world’s wrongs, because she’s lived through them already. perhaps her otherworldliness comes from her compassion, her moral virtues, her devotion to her brother. but would anything have changed if she had died instead of kircheis. was her grace and kindness so central to guiding reinhard’s character that her living being would have successfully overshadowed any impact that would have accompanied her death. yet even with the benefit of hindsight the narrative/narrator never truly speculates on the other half of it. because ultimately annerose exists as a concept---the justification used by “good” and “just” rulers, the sanitation of individual trauma to turn history into an epic. the longevity of reinhard’s reign in the narrative sense is premised upon the purity of his intention. what if annerose hadn’t been a victim “in the right way,” choosing anger as her reason to encourage reinhard instead of the mute graciousness superimposed by the narrative. does it even matter if the results are the same---the framing suggests that “yes, it does matter,” because the optics of saving a damsel are vastly different from saving a witch, even if they experience the same injustices. imagine the prince dying, not from the illness plot screwdriver purposefully used to remove him when he has fulfilled his purpose in the story, but because he chose to do the “right” thing for the “wrong” reasons. 

sometimes i miss my myth-based muses. my gods, my primordials, my demons, my sweet nymphs. my mortal children of deities.

Tag Dump!! <3

The Gate to Tomorrow is Not the Light of Heaven but the Darkness of the Depths of the Earth. || Final Fantasy 7 || ,

I Was Frozen in Time but Now I Feel as if my Time is Just Beginning. || Advent Children ||,

To Escape from a World of Illusions. I Wonder if it is Better. || Post Dirge of Cerberus || ,

And This. This is my Punishment. || Post Dirge of Cerberus AU ||,

Hearing Your Stories Has Added Upon Me Yet Another Sin. More Nightmares Will Come to Me Now. More Than I Previously Had. || Return to the Turks AU ||,

Our Battlefield is Now Beneath the Earth. || Devil May Cry ||,

Some Rise by Sin and Some by Virtue Fall. || Metal Gear ||,

True Power is Not Something That is Found by Those Who Seek It. || Final Fantasy XV ||,

Civilization Begins With Order and Grows With Liberty and Dies With Chaos. || Final Fantasy XVI ||,

#OTD in 1943 – Death of suffragist, trade unionist and Irish independence activist, Winifred Carney, in Belfast.

Close to the entrance of Milltown Cemetery is a limestone monument which marks the grave of a remarkable woman – Maria Winifred Carney. Winnie was born in Bangor, Co Down, but moved to the Falls Road in Belfast at an early age. She was born into a fairly comfortable family, and was one of seven children. Her mother and father Alfred and Sarah, were estranged, therefore, Sarah, was left to rear…

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i can't believe i've been on this webbed site for fifteen years

inverse of the fae food rule where a fairy tries 1 fast-food milkshake and can never taste *their* stuff the same again

So like....the mass effect aliens have such similar body plans for the most part...almost all of them (save the hanar and elcor) are bipedal with 4 limbs...i'll give the krogans a pass, they look unique enough that i'd buy "convergent evolution" for their situation. But then turians, vorcha and salarians have slightly different skeletal structure and the quarians even slighter. but humans, asari, batarians and drell are (at a glance) built the same. You equip liara with human armor in me1 even. So i wonder if in-universe there are panspermia conspiracies about an ancient species (the protheans or someone older) having seeded their DNA throughout the milky way and that being like the galaxy-wide common ancestor for sentient species

humanity is inherently good but it is culture that corrupts. culture is the cornerstone of a civilization but it always eventually comes back to harm more than do good

AFTER The RISING And BEFORE The FALL by Orna Ross - Historical Fiction, Irish Civil War, Family Saga

AFTER The RISING And BEFORE The FALL by Orna Ross – Historical Fiction, Irish Civil War, Family Saga

  Award-winning Irish author Orna Ross has created a volume comprising the first two novels of The Irish Trilogy, drawing from her Irish birth and upbringing for a special grasp of the country’s history, how its wars and political strivings have affected its people directly, personally, over multiple generations. Her two books take on a span of time rooted in the early 1920s and delve deeply into…

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i'm almost 2k into the "eddie describes billy's attractiveness in lurid detail" thing and i've only just gotten to his torso.

so much of my worldbuilding shows through my Amitas bloodline and i could talk about those fucked up guys forever when prompted. i think im gonna make The Peerless a character yall can actually talk to soon, because he’s Supposed to be awaking from his slumber.. soon<3 

Raizol’s ancestor, Eumenides, has some business to get to with that guy

area vampire not allowed to have one good day