The Rise of the Praetorian Guard
Dan Snow's History Hit
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I Think the Pretorians Are a Bit of a Decorative Thing
I think the thing to think of is that these were initially prominently veteran troops. But as they become a formalized organization and they begin to be recruited from italians, they see less and less combat. So in fact, the legions which are on the frontier, dealing with all sorts of problems, internal and external, are the hard nosed troops. And it's an interesting kind of dicotomy here, which is that you remember the film gladiator, and the implications of the manin black lorica segmentata must be the pretorians. I think people tend to think of them as being elite and that sort of because they had special skills.
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