Roman Republican governors of Gaul

Roman Republican governors^[1] of Gaul were assigned to the province of Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) or to Transalpine Gaul, the Mediterranean region of present-day France also called the Narbonensis, though the latter term is sometimes reserved for a more strictly defined area administered from Narbonne (ancient Narbo).^[2] Latin Gallia can also refer in this period to greater Gaul independent of Roman control, covering the remainder of France, Belgium, and parts of the Netherlands and Switzerland, often distinguished as Gallia Comata^[3] and including regions also known as Celtica (Κελτική in Strabo and other Greek sources), Aquitania, Belgica, and Armorica (Brittany). To the Romans, Gallia was a vast and vague geographical entity distinguished by predominately Celtic inhabitants, with "Celticity" a matter of culture as much as speaking gallice ("in Celtic").

The Latin word provincia (plural provinciae) originally referred to a task assigned to an official or to a sphere of responsibility within which he was authorized to act,^[4] including a military command attached to a specified theater of operations. The assignment of a provincia defined geographically thus did not always imply annexation of the territory under Roman rule. Provincial administration as such originated in efforts to stabilize an area in the aftermath of war, and only later was the provincia a formal, pre-existing administrative division regularly assigned to promagistrates. The provincia of Gaul therefore began as a military command, at first defensive and later expansionist.^[5] Independent Gaul^[6] was invaded by Julius Caesar in the 50s BC and organized under Roman administration by Augustus; see Roman Gaul for Gallic provinces in the Imperial era.

^ The English word "governor" is used here to encompass Latin-derived terminology including consul, praetor, dictator, proconsul, propraetor and "promagistrate" to refer generally to an individual in charge of an administrative area; the Latin word gubernator meant "helmsman, pilot."
^ The overview presented here relies primarily on A.L.F. Rivet, Gallia Narbonensis: Southern France in Roman Times (London, 1988), pp. 39–53, and Charles Ebel, Transalpine Gaul: The Emergence of a Roman Province (Brill, 1976); other sources include E. Badian, "Notes on Provincia Gallia in the Late Republic," in Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire offerts à André Piganiol (Paris, 1966), vol. 2; J.F. Drinkwater, Roman Gaul: The Three Provinces, 58 B.C.–A.D. 260 (Cornell University Press, 1983), pp. 1–34; and Christian Goudineau, César et la Gaule (Paris: Errance, 1990). Information not otherwise cited in the non-tabular portions of this article represents a consensus among these sources.
^ Gallia Comata is usually translated as the pejorative-sounding "Hairy Gaul," referring to the preference among Celts for longer hair and facial hair in contrast to the close-shorn Romans. Comatus, crinitus and similar Latin adjectives meaning "long-haired, having an abundance of hair" were regularly applied to deities such as Apollo and Dionysus, and the disparaging quality of the epithet can perhaps be exaggerated in translation.
^ During the Late Republic, for instance, two provinciae assigned at different times to Pompeius Magnus were operations against the pirates and oversight of the grain supply (cura annonae); these were not confined to a geographic region.
^ John Richardson, "The Administration of the Empire," in The Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge University Press, 1994), vol. 9, pp. 564–565 online et passim, especially p. 580.
^ Le Gaule indépendante is the subtitle of volume 2 (1908) of Camille Jullian's monumental Histoire de la Gaule, referring to Gaul outside Roman rule at the time of Caesar's conquest.

[1] The English word "governor" is used here to encompass Latin-derived terminology including consul, praetor, dictator, proconsul, propraetor and "promagistrate" to refer generally to an individual in charge of an administrative area; the Latin word gubernator meant "helmsman, pilot."

[2] The overview presented here relies primarily on A.L.F. Rivet, Gallia Narbonensis: Southern France in Roman Times (London, 1988), pp. 39–53, and Charles Ebel, Transalpine Gaul: The Emergence of a Roman Province (Brill, 1976); other sources include E. Badian, "Notes on Provincia Gallia in the Late Republic," in Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire offerts à André Piganiol (Paris, 1966), vol. 2; J.F. Drinkwater, Roman Gaul: The Three Provinces, 58 B.C.–A.D. 260 (Cornell University Press, 1983), pp. 1–34; and Christian Goudineau, César et la Gaule (Paris: Errance, 1990). Information not otherwise cited in the non-tabular portions of this article represents a consensus among these sources.

[3] Gallia Comata is usually translated as the pejorative-sounding "Hairy Gaul," referring to the preference among Celts for longer hair and facial hair in contrast to the close-shorn Romans. Comatus, crinitus and similar Latin adjectives meaning "long-haired, having an abundance of hair" were regularly applied to deities such as Apollo and Dionysus, and the disparaging quality of the epithet can perhaps be exaggerated in translation.

[4] During the Late Republic, for instance, two provinciae assigned at different times to Pompeius Magnus were operations against the pirates and oversight of the grain supply (cura annonae); these were not confined to a geographic region.

[5] John Richardson, "The Administration of the Empire," in The Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge University Press, 1994), vol. 9, pp. 564–565 online et passim, especially p. 580.

[6] Le Gaule indépendante is the subtitle of volume 2 (1908) of Camille Jullian's monumental Histoire de la Gaule, referring to Gaul outside Roman rule at the time of Caesar's conquest.

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