Praetorians

**Philippus Flavius Homovallumus** · 07-28-2006, 17:31

They will be, eventually. Patience

**abou** · 07-28-2006, 17:39

Has there been any historical source that mentions that Praetorians taking part in military actions? If not, what would be the point? Leave the slot for some other unit.

**Philippus Flavius Homovallumus** · 07-28-2006, 18:10

I'm sure Suetonius mentions it, I can't think of any others off the top of my head but its almost certainly in Tacitus somewhere. Traditionally Praetorians were the General's elite veterans, the guarded the camp and were excused the messy duties like ditch digging. More importantly though they acted as the elite tactical reserve.

Augustus simply took the concept and reformed them into an Imperial guard.

**abou** · 07-28-2006, 18:18

Ah, so more like a Cohors Consularis.

**Geoffrey S** · 07-28-2006, 18:46

Praetorians wandered around Germany with Germanicus, I think.

**toxicseagull** · 07-28-2006, 22:38

tacticus says that otho takes all the pratorian guard and city guard in the civil war agaisnt viti-(something) when upper and lower germany legions rebelled after the one after Nero died, i forget the names.

its in the histories, tacitus 2 the histories 1-3

**Shorebreak** · 07-29-2006, 07:04

Originally Posted by toxicseagull

tacticus says that otho takes all the pratorian guard and city guard in the civil war agaisnt viti-(something) when upper and lower germany legions rebelled after the one after Nero died, i forget the names.

its in the histories, tacitus 2 the histories 1-3

Your order of princeps' is a bit off....

The first you mentioned would be Vitellius; he succeded Otho in 69 AD and was overthrown by Vespasian later in the year, thus he was the 3rd emperor during the year of the 4 emperors...

The second is Sulpicius Galba, who became princeps shortly after the Vindex revolt was crushed by Verginius Rufus early in 69AD. He was assasinated due to the machinations of Otho, thus Galba was the 1st emperor in the year of the 4 emperors.