ABSTRACT
The principal frontier provinces of the Roman Empire were Britain (from 213 just Upper Britain), Lower and Upper Germany, Pannonia (from 106 to 214 just Upper Pannonia, thereafter Upper and Lower Pannonia), Moesia (from 86 Upper and Lower Moesia), Dacia (106 to 120, then again from 169/70 as Tres Daciae), Gappadocia (from c. 55), Judaea (Syria Palaestina, from c. 128) and Syria (from 194 Syria Coele). Each was governed by an ex-consul with the title of legatus Augusti pro praetore. He would normally have had some previous military experience as senatorial tribune of a legion at about the age of 20, and then as a legionary commander (legatus Augusti legionis) about ten years later. Now in his late thirties or early forties, he would be in charge of between two and four legions and an equivalent number of auxiliary troops. The gover nors of the most exposed of these provinces, constantly under threat from in vasion, and lying adjacent to areas of serious restlessness, and thus needing the fullest level of protection - Britain, Dacia and Syria (two of which were also the most distant from Rome) — had normally already governed one of the other consular provinces and so were the empire’s senior and most experienced army commanders.
