PRETO'RIAN BANDS (Lat. pratorice cohortes, and pratoriani) the name given, more particularly during the period of the Roman empire, to a body of soldiers, organized for the purpose of protecting the person and maintaining the power of the emperors. We indeed read of a pratoria cohors, or select guard of the most valiant soldiers attached to the person of Scipio Africanus, who, according to Festus, received six-fold pay, and the exigencies of the civil wars naturally increased their number; but it was to Augustus that the institution of them as a separate force is owing. He formed 9 or 10 cohorts, each consisting of 1000 men (horse and foot); but kept only three of them in Rome, the rest being dispersed in cities not far off. Tiberius, however, assembled the 9 cohorts at the capital in a permanent camp, and Vitellius increased their number to 10. The pre torians served at first for 12, and afterward for 16 years; they received double pay; the privates were held equal in rank to the centurions in tile regular army, and on their retirement, each received 20,000 sesterces. They soon acquired a dangerous power, which
they exercised in the most unscrupulous manner, deposing and elevating emperors at their pleasure. Aspirants for the imperial dignity found it advisible, and even necessary, to bribe them largely; while those who acquired that dignity without their assistance were accustomed on their accession to purchase their favor by liberal donations. The pretorians, however, had no political or ambitious views; they were simply an insolent and rapacious soldiery, fond of substantial gratifications, and careless how they got them. After the death of Pertinax (193 A.D.), they actually sold "the purple" for a sum of money to Didius but in the same year their peculiar organization was entirely broken up by Sevens, who formed new cohorts altogether out of the best legions serv ing on the frontiers, which he increased to four times the number of the old. After several other changes, they were entirely abolished by Constantine (312 A.D.), who dis persed them among his regular legions.