PROCURATOR. - A name designating certain officials of the Roman imperial period.
Their institution goes back to Augustus, who had placed procuratores Augusti, of equestrian rank, over certain offices, and procuratores, chosen from among the freedmen, over the imperial financial administration.
Subsequently, however, all procurators were transformed into public officials, drawn almost exclusively, from the time of Hadrian onward, from the equestrian order. One finds them placed over the sections of the chancery of the princeps (ab epistulis, a rationibus, a libellis, etc.), over the financial administration of the imperial provinces, and over the direction of various services in the city of Rome (procurator aquarum, viarum, operum publicorum, etc.). The most important, however, are those placed at the head of the states annexed by Rome without being elevated to the status of a province (so-called procuratorial regions or provinces). To them belonged the powers of provincial governors, which they sometimes exercised even in place of an official of higher rank, with the title of procurator vice praesidis. They were appointed by the emperor by means of a codicillus. In the 2nd century they are distinguished into four categories, according to their financial treatment. At various periods the titles of vir perfectissimus, eminentissimus, egregius belonged to them.
Bibliography4 works
Rodolfo Danieli
In Judea (v.) of the 1st century A.D., which had become a Roman province, the government was entrusted to a procurator (ἐπίτροπος, in the New Testament referred to generically as ἡγεμῶν), who normally exercised his office autonomously, but in the gravest matters depended on the legate of Syria (v.). Thus certain apparently contradictory expressions of Flavius Josephus are reconciled (Holzmeister [v. bibl.], p. 79).
The procurators normally resided at Caesarea Maritima, in Herod's Palace; they went up to Jerusalem on the principal feasts, when there was danger to public order. They commanded the army, consisting of 5 cohorts (about 3000 men), one of which was quartered in Jerusalem, in the Antonia tower (v.); they collected the tribute by means of the publicans and exercised judicial power with the right of condemning to death (ius gladii), which was denied to the Sanhedrin (v.). They appointed and deposed the high priests, guarded their sacred vestments, and exacted oaths of loyalty to the emperor.
The power of the procurators was, however, limited by the competences of the Sanhedrin and of the local authorities, as well as by the privileges granted by the Romans to the Jews, such as exemption from military service, from the cult of the emperor, and from the introduction into Jerusalem of statues and imperial symbols.
From the texts of Flavius Josephus and of Philo of Alexandria one can reconstruct the series of the procurators of Judea and establish their approximate chronology. For the individual procurators reference is made to the entries concerning them. Here their list and the dates established by the careful study of U. Holzmeister (pp. 91 and 117) are reported.
From 6 to 41 A.D. there succeeded one another: Coponius (6-ca. 9); Marcus Ambivius, perhaps to be read Ambibulus (ca. 9-ca. 12); Annius Rufus (ca. 12-15); Valerius Gratus (12-26); Pontius Pilate (26-36); Marcellus (36-7); Marullus (7-41).
After the Kingdom of Herod Agrippa I (v.), from 44 to 66 A.D., there succeeded one another: Cuspius Fadus (44-7); Tiberius Alexander (?-7 [48?]); Ventidius Cumanus (?-52/53); Antonius Felix (52/53-60); Porcius Festus (60/61-62); Lucceius Albinus (62-64/65); Gessius Florus (64/65-66). Then follows the Jewish war, concluded in 70 with the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus (v.).
Bibliography5 works
Pietro De Ambroggi