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51-646: The praefectus urbanus , also called praefectus urbi or urban prefect in English, was prefect of the city of Rome, and later also of Constantinople . The office originated under the Roman kings , continued during the Republic and Empire, and held high importance in late Antiquity . The office survived the collapse of the Western Roman Empire , and the last urban prefect of Rome, named Iohannes,

102-678: A coast guard service, whether these are independent organizations or as a part of a navy. The Argentine Naval Prefecture is a federal coast guard service of Argentina independent from the Argentine Navy . On the other hand, the National Naval Prefecture of Uruguay has similar duties to the ones of a regular coast guard but it is subordinated to the National Navy of Uruguay . Baths of Trajan Commissioned by Emperor Domitian starting from around 96 AD,

153-494: A district in the now much less populous capital. Prefect#Ancient Rome Prefect (from the Latin praefectus , substantive adjectival form of praeficere : "put in front", meaning in charge) is a magisterial title of varying definition, but essentially refers to the leader of an administrative area. A prefect's office, department, or area of control is called a prefecture , but in various post- Roman empire cases there

204-578: A higher authority. They did have some authority in their prefecture such as controlling prisons and in civil administration. Especially in Medieval Latin , præfectus was used to refer to various officers—administrative, military, judicial, etc.—usually alongside a more precise term in the vernacular (such as Burggraf , which literally means Count of the Castle in the German language). The term

255-469: A perimeter wall, which joined with the bath block on the northeast side, where the main entrance was located. A huge apse projected out from the southwestern side of the platform, lined with seating, suggesting the area was used for athletic contests and performances. There were two smaller apses set within the corners of the northeast perimeter wall, flanking the bath block. These are thought to have contained monumental fountains. There were also exedrae in

306-411: A third the size of those of Trajan. The main chambers were arranged in a sequence along a central axis from northeast to southwest ( natatio – frigidarium – tepidarium – caldarium ), and were flanked on either side by a network of rooms and open courts which were strictly symmetrical with one another. The visitor would have entered through a vestibule on the northeast side, and proceeded straight to

357-429: Is a prefect without a prefecture or vice versa . The words "prefect" and "prefecture" are also used, more or less conventionally, to render analogous words in other languages, especially Romance languages . Praefectus was the formal title of many, fairly low to high-ranking officials in ancient Rome , whose authority was not embodied in their person (as it was with elected Magistrates) but conferred by delegation from

408-519: Is attested in 599. In the East, in Constantinople, the office survived until the 13th century. According to Roman tradition, in 753 BC when Romulus founded the city of Rome and instituted the monarchy , he also created the office of custos urbis (guardian of the city) to serve as the king's chief lieutenant. Appointed by the king to serve for life, the custos urbis served concurrently as

459-499: Is used by the Catholic Church , which based much of its canon law terminology on Roman law, in several different ways. In the context of schools, a prefect is a pupil who has been given certain responsibilities in the school, similar to the responsibilities given to a hall monitor or safety patrol members. Many college preparatory boarding schools utilize the position of prefect as a high student leadership position. In

510-664: The pietas towards their parents. Gradually, the judicial powers of the Prefect expanded, as the Prefect's office began to re-assume its old powers from the praetor urbanus . Eventually there was no appeal from the Prefect's sentencing, except to that of the Roman Emperor , unlike the sentencing of other officials. Even the governors of the Roman provinces were subject to the Prefect's jurisdiction. The Prefect also possessed judicial powers over criminal matters. Originally these powers were exercised in conjunction with those of

561-460: The princeps Senatus . As the second highest office of state, the custos urbis was the king's personal representative. In the absence of the king from the city, the custos urbis exercised all of his powers, which included the powers of convoking the Senate , the popular assemblies and the exercise of force in the event of an emergency. However, the imperium he possessed was only valid within

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612-561: The Comitia Curiata . The office was only open to former consuls. Around 450 BC, with the coming of the decemvirs , the office of the custos urbis was renamed the praefectus urbi (Prefect of the City of Rome), and was stripped of most of its powers and responsibilities, becoming a merely ceremonial post. Most of the office's powers and responsibilities had been transferred to the urban praetor ( praetor urbanus ). The praefectus urbi

663-643: The Conseils régionaux ) in order to administer the subdivisional entities ( collectivités territoriales ) of the nation (law from 2 March 1982). The changes have gradually altered the function of the prefect, who is still the chief representative of the State in a department, but without the omnipotent function of chief administrator. Instead, the prefect has acquired the non-titular roles of chief controller of regional, departmental, and municipal public accounts, and of chief inspector of good (i.e. law-abiding) governance of

714-529: The Roman Empire in 27 BC, he reformed the office of Prefect at the suggestion of his minister and friend Maecenas . Again elevated into a magistracy , Augustus granted the praefectus urbi all the powers needed to maintain order within the city. The office's powers also extended beyond Rome itself to the ports of Ostia and the Portus , as well as a zone of one hundred Roman miles (c. 140 km) around

765-416: The natatio , a large open-air swimming pool surrounded by colonnades on all four sides. Next came either one of the identical flanking wings, where there was a rotunda each (possibly frigidaria ) followed by rectangular palaestrae , open courts used for wrestling and athletic exercises. After proceeding through the side rooms, the true baths began with the caldarium (hot room) on the southwest side of

816-399: The quaestors , but by the 3rd century, they were exercised alone. In late Antiquity, the office gained in effective power, as the imperial court was removed from the city, meaning that the prefects were no longer under the emperor's direct supervision. The office was usually held by leading members of Italy's senatorial aristocracy, who remained largely pagan even after Emperor Constantine

867-457: The ταξιῶται ( taxiōtai ), came under the prefect's authority, and the city jail was located at the basement of his official residence, the praetorium , located before the Forum of Constantine . As with the Prefect of Rome, the night watch came under a subordinate prefect, the νυκτέπαρχος ( nykteparchos , "night prefect"). In the 530s, however, some authority for the policing and regulation of

918-423: The 1980s, under the presidency of François Mitterrand (1981–1995), a fundamental change in the role of the prefect (and subprefect) took place. The previously extremely centralized French Fifth Republic was gradually decentralized by the creation of administrative regions and the devolution of central state powers into regions, departments, and communes (municipalities). New elected authorities were created (e.g.

969-619: The Baths of Titus stood on the Oppian, with the name of Trajan applied to them later because he undertook a restoration. Only in the late 19th century did the archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani untangle the separate identities of the baths, establishing the Baths of Trajan as a much larger structure separate from the Baths of Titus. Several fragments of the Forma Urbis depict the plan of the Baths, one of which preserves three letters ("AIA") from

1020-662: The Great's conversion to Christianity . Over the following thirty years, Christian holders were few. In such a capacity, Quintus Aurelius Symmachus played a prominent role in the controversy over the Altar of Victory in the late 4th century. The urban prefecture survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire , and remained active under the Ostrogothic Kingdom and well after the Byzantine reconquest . The last mention of

1071-643: The Interior, which makes him unique as usually in French towns and cities the chief of the local police is subordinate to the mayor, who is the local representative of the minister in police matters. In Paris, the prefect of police ( préfet de police ) is the officer in charge of co-ordinating the city's police forces. The local police in Japan are divided among prefectures too. In several countries of Latin America,

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1122-503: The Prefect to exercise his authority, the cohortes urbanae , Rome's police force, and the nightwatchmen ( vigiles ) under their prefect ( praefectus vigilum ), were placed under his command. The Prefect also had the duty of publishing the laws promulgated by the Emperor, and as such acquired a legal jurisdiction. This extended to legal cases between slaves and their masters, patrons and their freedmen , and over sons who had violated

1173-601: The Roman urban prefect occurs as late as 879. When the Emperor Constantine the Great ( r.   306–337) named Constantinople the capital of the Roman Empire, he also established a proconsul to oversee the city. In the late 350s, Constantius II ( r.   337–361) expanded the city's Senate and set it as equal to that of Rome. Correspondingly, on 11 September or 11 December 359, Constantinople

1224-740: The Traiana was built. Although they were correctly known as the Thermae Traiani throughout the Middle Ages and much of the Renaissance, in the late sixteenth century the ruins of the Baths of Trajan were confused with the nearby Baths of Titus and became known as the Thermae Titiani . Doubt arose as to whether the Baths of Trajan had ever existed at all as an independent structure. Supporters of this theory argued that only

1275-470: The actual city of Rome and a life term appointed by the consuls . The custos urbis exercised within the city all the powers of the consuls if they were absent from Rome. These powers included: convoking the Senate and Comitia Curiata , and, in times of war, levying and commanding legions . The first major change to the office occurred in 487 BC, when the office became an elective magistracy , elected by

1326-469: The authorities of the respective territorial entities. A préfet maritime ( maritime prefect ) is a French admiral ( amiral ) who is commissioned to be the chief commander of a zone maritime (i.e. a section of the French territorial waters and the respective shores). In Paris, the préfet de police ( prefect of police ) is the head of the city's police under the direct authority of the Minister of

1377-405: The building. This rectangular room had an apse in each wall and projected forward from the main block to best absorb the hot afternoon sun. The rooms which flanked it on either side contained lesser hot rooms. Then came a small tepidarium (warm room), acting as a buffer between the larger cold and hot rooms. The largest chamber of all came next, the frigidarium (cold room). This functioned as

1428-411: The central hall of the entire building, where two different axes of rooms and open courts intersected. It was roofed by three cross vaults supported on eight huge columns arranged along the walls. In its four corners were cold plunge baths. The bather would have completed the experience back where they began, with another swim in the natatio . In addition to the facilities of the bath complex used by

1479-451: The city passed to two new offices, created by Justinian I (r. 527–565). In 535 the praitōr of the demoi ( πραίτωρ τῶν δήμων ; praetor plebis in Latin), who commanded 20 soldiers and 30 firemen, was put in charge of policing and firefighting, while in 539, the office of the quaesitor (κοιαισίτωρ) was established and tasked with limiting the uncontrolled immigration to the city from

1530-450: The city's provision with grain from overseas , the oversight of the officials responsible for the drainage of the Tiber and the maintenance of the city's sewers and water supply system , as well as its monuments. The provisioning of the city's large population with the grain dole was especially important; when the Prefect failed to secure adequate supplies, riots often broke out. To enable

1581-485: The city's districts (Latin regiones , in Greek ρεγεῶναι , regeōnai ), the parathalassitēs (παραθαλασσίτης), an official responsible for the capital's seashore and ports, as well as their tolls, and several inspectors ( epoptai ), the heads of the guilds ( exarchoi ) and the boullōtai , whose function was to check and append the seal of the eparch on weights and scales as well as merchandise. The office continued until

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1632-510: The city. The Prefect's office was called the secretarium tellurense (secretariat of Tellus ). The find-spots of inscriptions honouring Prefects suggest that it was located on the Oppian Hill , near the Baths of Trajan . Acting as a quasi- mayor of Rome, the Prefect was the superintendent of all guilds and corporations ( collegia ), held the responsibility (via the praefectus annonae ) of

1683-479: The complex of baths occupied space on the southern side of the Oppian Hill on the outskirts of what was then the main developed area of the city, although still inside the boundary of the Servian Wall . The architect of the complex is said to be Apollodorus of Damascus . Early Christian writers were thought to have misnamed the remains the "Baths of Domitian" but this was shown to be a correct attribution for

1734-413: The discovery of a large (about 10 m ) frescoed bird's-eye view of a walled port city, a unique survivor of such a subject, in a buried gallery or cryptoporticus beneath the baths, which pre-dated their construction, but postdated Nero's Domus Aurea . Whether it represents the reorganization of an actual port or an idealized one remains an open question. Additionally, the discovery of a 16 m mosaic

1785-849: The early 13th century with its functions and authority relatively intact, and may possibly have survived into the Latin Empire following the capture of the city in the Fourth Crusade in 1204, being equated in Latin with the castellanus of the city. After the reconquest of the city by the Byzantines, however, the office of the Eparch was replaced throughout the Palaiologan period (1261–1453) by several kephalatikeuontes (sing. kephalatikeuōn , κεφαλατικεύων, "headsman"), who each oversaw

1836-450: The emperor who began the project, even if Trajan completed the work. The baths were utilized mainly as a recreational and social center by Roman citizens, both men and women, as late as the early 5th century. The complex seems to have been deserted soon afterwards as a cemetery dated to the 5th century (which remained in use until the 7th century) has been found in front of the northeastern exedra. The baths were thus no longer in use at

1887-582: The floorplan. Many works of art were unearthed in the vicinity of the Baths during the Renaissance, including the famous statuary group of Laocoön and His Sons , which was discovered in a hall underneath a vineyard in 1506, near the Seven Halls. The main building to which this hall belonged, presumably in the garden, is uncertain, but the Domus Aurea and the Baths of Trajan are both possibilities. The archaeological excavations of 1997 also led to

1938-476: The inscription identifying the complex as the "THERMAE TRAIANI". The Baths were slowly dismantled over the centuries, as the marble and brick were sold by the monks of San Pietro in Vincoli to stonemasons for re-use and burning into lime for mortar. Large parts still remained standing at the beginning of the sixteenth century, when architects like Andrea Palladio studied the ruins and were able to reconstruct

1989-410: The meridian line on a north–south axis. It is suggested that this unorthodox orientation was chosen by the architects to reduce the bathers' exposure to the wind, while also maximising exposure to the sun. The bath complex was immense by ancient Roman standards, covering an area of approximately 330 by 340 metres. The baths including the open area (which surrounded it on three sides) were enclosed by

2040-447: The office possessed great prestige and extensive authority, and was one of the few high state offices which could not be occupied by a eunuch . The prefect was also the formal head of the Senate, presiding over its meetings. Hence, the prefect's nomination had to be formally ratified by the Senate, and unlike the other senior administrative positions of the state ( praetorian prefects and diocesan vicars ) with their military connotations,

2091-408: The office's ancient and purely civilian origins were emphasized by the prefect's wearing of the toga as a ceremonial garb. The prefect was solely responsible for the administration of the city of Constantinople and its immediate area. His tasks were manifold, ranging from the maintenance of order to the regulation and supervision of all guilds, corporations and public institutions. The city police,

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2142-510: The prefect's authority. The prefect was also responsible for the appointment of the teachers to the University of Constantinople , and for the distribution of the grain dole to the city. According to the late 9th-century Klētorologion , his two principal aides were the symponos and the logothetēs tou praitōriou . In addition, there were the heads ( γειτονιάρχαι , geitoniarchai , the old curatores regionum ) and judges ( kritai ) of

2193-428: The provinces, with supervising public mores, and with prosecuting sexual offenders and heretics. In the middle Byzantine period (7th–12th centuries), the prefect was regarded as the supreme judge in the capital, after the emperor himself. His role in the economical life of the city was also of principal importance. The 10th-century Book of the Prefect stipulates the various rules for the various guilds that fell under

2244-560: The public, there was a system of subterranean passageways and structures used by slaves and workers to service and maintain the facilities. Also underground, the massive cistern , surviving today as The Seven Halls stored much of the water used in the baths, up to 8 million litres. The water may have been supplied by the Aqua Traiana but, since it is unlikely to have crossed the Tiber, more likely by freed water from other aqueducts after

2295-664: The rank of prefect is still in use. In the Investigations Police of Chile (Policia de Investigaciones de Chile) the rank of prefect is reserved for the highest-ranking officers. On the other hand, in Argentina the Argentine Federal Penitentiary Service (Servicio Penitenciario Argentino) also use the rank of prefect as a high-ranking officer. Several countries of Latin America use the term "prefecture" (prefectura) to denominate

2346-534: The residence on the Oppian remained in use by Emperors of the Flavian dynasty , until it was destroyed in a fire in 104 AD. The Domus Aurea was used as a cryptoporticus to level the ground and support a platform built over it upon which the Baths were built. The complex rested on a northeast–southwest axis. This was off axis by about 30° with the Domus Aurea and the Baths of Titus , both of which rested along

2397-449: The southwest and northwest corners of the enclosure wall, which may have housed libraries. The exedra in the southwest corner, with its two stories of niches, still survives. The plan of the baths broadly followed the prototype laid out in the neighbouring Baths of Titus , constructed 29 years earlier, and would be replicated in the great Imperial baths of the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. The Baths of Titus, however, covered an area less than

2448-667: The time of the siege of Rome by the Ostrogoths in 537; with the destruction of the Roman aqueducts , all thermae were abandoned, as was the whole of the now-waterless Mons Oppius . The baths were erected on the Oppian Hill , a southern extension of the Esquiline Hill . The lower slopes had been occupied by the Esquiline Wing of the Domus Aurea , an ornate residence belonging to Nero . After Nero's death,

2499-525: The walls of Rome. Under the kings, only three men held the position. The first king Romulus appointed Denter Romulius to serve as the first custos urbis , the third king Tullus Hostilius appointed Numa Marcius , and the seventh king Tarquinius Superbus appointed Spurius Lucretius . After the expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus in 510 BC and the formation of the Republic in 509 BC, the office of custos urbis remained unaltered: having power only within

2550-538: Was also granted an urban prefect, commonly called in English the Eparch from his Greek title ( ὁ ἔπαρχος τῆς πόλεως , ho eparchos tēs poleōs ). The prefect was one of the emperor's chief lieutenants: like his Roman counterpart, the Constantinopolitan prefect was a member of the highest senatorial class, the illustres , and came immediately after the praetorian prefects in the imperial hierarchy. As such,

2601-605: Was appointed each year for the sole purpose of allowing the consuls to celebrate the Latin Festival , which required them to leave Rome. The praefectus urbi no longer held the power to convoke the Senate, or the right of speaking in it, and was appointed by the Consuls instead of being elected. When the first Roman Emperor , Augustus ( r.  27 BC – AD 14 ), transformed the Roman Republic into

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