Talk:Legatus

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Military history: Culture / Roman & Byzantine / Classical Start‑class

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Catholic business organization[edit]

There is also a Catholic business organization of the same name which might deserve an entry. ADM (talk) 20:45, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism[edit]

This article oversimplifies the subject. Which is understandable, since the use of the Latin word legatus under the Empire can be confusing.

Legatus denotes a person who is an assistant or representative for another person. Thus a legatus of a legion was the Emperor's assistant assigned to command the unit. (Practically all of the military units of the Roman Empire reported to the Emperor, not to the Roman state -- I think there might have been one or two Senatoral units, but their headcount was no more than two thousand men, as compared to about 300,000 Imperial soldiers.)
Provinces of the Roman Empire were divided into those reporting to the Senate (known as "Public provinces"), & those reporting to the Emperor (known as "Imperial provinces") -- which just happened to have almost all of the soldiers stationed in them. The Public provinces were administered by pro-praetorian or pro-consular officials; the Imperial provinces were administered by legati, or deputies, of the Emperor. Of course, as time went on & the distinction between the two were blurred, governors of Public provinces were sometimes incorrectly referred to as legatus, but until the reforms of Diocletian & Constantine in the 4th century, this was an important distinction.
All governors could appoint their own legati. He was a junior senator who was either being trained for his next step in his cursus honorum as governor (in which case he'd usually serve as legatus only once), or a non-entity who was destined not to advance to either a governorship of his own -- or the consulate -- who would serve as legatus to a number of governors.

I obviously need to dig up the references for these statements, but the above is subtly different from what the article states & better reflects the sources. Currently the 3 sketchy cites the article currently has doesn't exclude what I have written, let alone supports what the article asserts. -- llywrch (talk) 18:33, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this article and the others on different types of legates could use a substantial overhaul. I just had to go and read up on legates in Harper's, because nowhere could I find a mention of judicial legates. This title, or the anglicized "legate" (currently a disambiguation page, but that could be retitled "legate (disambiguation)") should be a blanket article covering all the different types of legates, with separate articles on ambassadorial, military, and imperial legates (governors, and legates subordinate to the governors, such as the aforementioned judicial ones, etc.). I might take up this project in the next few weeks, once I get done with the letter "P" in Roman gentes. P Aculeius (talk) 13:26, 18 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]