DUCENA´RII
DUCENA´RII the name of various officers and
magistrates, in the imperial period, of whom the principal were as
follows:--
1. The imperial procuratores, who received a salary of 200 sestertia. Dio
Cassius (53.15) says that the procuratores first received a salary in the
time of Augustus, and that they derived their title from the amount of their
salary. We thus read of centenarii, &c., as well as of ducenarii.
(See Capitolin.
Pertin. 2; Orelli,
Inscript.
No. 946.) Claudius granted to the procuratores ducenarii the consular
ornaments (
Suet. Cl. 24).
[p. 1.695]
2. A class or decuria of judices, first established by Augustus. They were so
called because their property, as valued in the census, only amounted to 200
sestertia, and they tried causes of small importance. (
Suet. Aug. 32.)
3. Officers who commanded two centuries, and who held the same rank as the
primi hastati in the ancient legion. (Veget. 2.8; Orelli,
Inscrip. No. 3444.)
4. The imperial household troops, who were under the authority of the
magister officiorum. They are frequently
mentioned among the
agentes in rebus, or
ushers. (Cod. 1, tit. 31; 12, tit. 20.)
In the third century A.D. and later the title is often applied in
inscriptions to
protectores Augusti and to many
officials of equestrian rank, as
praefecti legionum,
praefecti vehiculorum, imperatori a consiliis. In these cases
it appears to denote the rank as well as the salary of the official, and is
seldom used without the addition of another title. (Th. Mommsen in
Ephem. Epigraphica, 5.121-7.) The office of a ducenarius
is
ducenaria or
ducena (Cod. Th. 1.9, 1; 12.1, 5).
[
W.S] [
J.H.F]
