Governor Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Ancient Rome=== {{main|Roman governor}} 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 the public spending in their area. 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 [[consul]]ate or [[praetor]]ship) in Rome in the previous year, and carried related titles as governor (''proconsul'' or ''[[promagistrate|propraetor]]''). The first emperor, Octavianus Augustus (who acquired or settled a number of new territories; officially his style was republican: [[Princeps civitatis]]), 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 governorship himself, delegating the actual task of administration to appointees (usually with the title ''legatus Augusti''). The ''legatus'' sometimes would appoint a [[prefect]] (later [[procurator (Roman)|procurator]]), usually a man of [[Equestrian (Roman)|equestrian]] rank, to act as his deputy in a subregion of the larger province: the infamous character of [[Pontius Pilate]] in the Christian [[Gospel]]s was a governor of this sort. 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]]'', a title evoking the [[Imperial cult (ancient Rome)|religious cult of the emperor]]. Emperors Diocletian (see [[Tetrarchy]]) and Constantine in the third and fourth centuries AD carried out a root and branch reorganisation of the administration with two main features: *Provinces were divided up and became much more numerous (Italy itself, before the 'colonizing homeland', was brought into the system for the first time); they were then grouped into [[Roman diocese|dioceses]], and the dioceses in turn into four [[praetorian prefecture]]s (originally each under a residing co-emperor); *Military responsibilities were removed from governors and given to new officials called ''[[comes]] rei militaris'' (the comital title was also granted to many court and civilian administrative positions) or ''[[dux]]'', later also ''[[magister militum]]''. The prestigious 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, some known as ''[[consularis]]'', some as ''[[corrector]]'', while others as ''[[praeses]]''. Apart from Egypt and the East (''Oriens'' β ''viz'' greater Syria), each diocese was directed by a governor known as a ''[[vicarius]]''. The prefectures were directed by ''[[praetorian prefect|praefecti praetorio]]'' (greatly transformed in their functions from their role in the [[Principate|early Empire]]). Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page