Le proconsul et le prince d’Auguste à Dioclétien

This analysis of the relations between the proconsul and the princeps is a contribution to the wider study of the role of the principal senators in the entourage of the Caesars and in the government of the Roman Empire. Through describing how the administrative structures and the political personnel functioned, this book seeks to shed new light on the institutions and practices that the imperial power invented in order to choose, collaborate with and communicate with the ten governors of the public provinces. This will be shown through the treatment of three major themes : the designation of the proconsul (normally resulting from drawing lots) and the methods through which the imperial power intervened in this traditional process to name or prorogate his prefered candidates ; the comparative study of the powers of the princeps and the proconsul ; the means of long-distance communications established between the centre of the Empire and the peripheries which were under the authority of the proconsuls.