THE PRAETORIAN GUARD IN CAMPAIGN. I: EQUIPMENT

This paper is intended to be the first one of a set of two works related to technical and tactical aspects of the Praetorian Guard as an elite combat unit of the Roman army of the Principate. In this respect, the praetorians as unit evolved in an evident way throughout their slightly more than three centuries of History, in spite of the archaism that always characterized to this military unit. We will not approach neither in this nor in the following paper the political derivations by which this body became notorious; our pretension is to centre on an aspect that has been approached in few occasions and, generally, in a very tangential way.