Praetorian: The Rise and Fall of Rome’s Imperial Bodyguard by Guy de la Bédoyère
Yale, 344 pages, £10.99
The enthroned Supreme Leader Snoke – surrounded by scarlet-clad praetorian guards in Star Wars’s The Last Jedi – shows how Rome’s praetorian guard remains a powerful symbol of a ruthless, loyal bodyguard, prepared to defend their leader to the death. And yet, as Guy de la Bédoyère reveals in Praetorian, the role of the praetorian guard was more complex than this comparison would imply.
Yes, the praetorians were the emperor’s bodyguards – although they were as likely to assassinate as to defend their leader – but individual praetorians are also known to have acted as fire-fighters, executioners, militarised police, guards for the grain route, and even a land surveyor and lead-worker. By fully engaging with some of the most dramatic writings of Roman historians, de la Bédoyère tracks some of the most memorable moments in Roman imperial history, from the assassination of Caligula to the last praetorians drowning in the Tiber at the battle of the Milvian Bridge, which saw Constantine triumph at Rome.
But alongside the vivid narratives of writers like Tacitus and Herodian, which tend to focus upon the ambitions of notorious praetorian prefects, de la Bédoyère expands our understanding of individual guards by also looking at their tombstones and certificates of discharge from service. Consequently, this book combines an entertaining account of the ambitions of praetorian prefects alongside the more mundane lives of individual guardsmen, and so offers insights not just into political and military history, but also into the changing social and cultural landscape of imperial Rome.
Alison E Cooley is professor of classics and ancient history at the University of Warwick