office
proconsul
also: PROCOS., pro consule
A promagistracy: a former consul (or appointee) granted consular imperium to govern a province or command an army. C. Cassius Longinus styles himself PROCOS. in the openers of Fam. 12.11 and 12.12.
Reading notes
- Ad Familiares 3.2 §1 set out for a province with command
Cum imperio: holding the formal military and civil authority of a provincial governor. Cicero took the Cilician command reluctantly in 51 BC as a consequence of Pompey's law requiring a five-year gap between magistracy and a province.
- Ad Familiares 3.12 §4 with my year of command now ended
Cicero's annual proconsular imperium over Cilicia expired around 30 July 50 BC, and he was sailing home; provincial commands were normally held for a single year.
- Ad Familiares 6.9 §1 PROCONSUL
A proconsul was a former consul (or sometimes praetor) commanding a province with consular authority after his year of office; Furfanius held Sicily, a strategically vital grain-producing province, in 46-45 BC.
- Eleventh Philippic §5 consular command
Trebonius held Asia with proconsular imperium after his consulship; Cicero stresses the outrage of a man of consular rank being tortured to death.