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Legatus
High-ranking Roman military officer / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the ancient Roman military rank. For the bird genus, see Legatus (bird). For other uses, see Legate (disambiguation).
A legatus (Classical Latin: [ɫeːˈɡaːtʊs]; anglicised as legate) was a high-ranking Roman military officer in the Roman army, equivalent to a high-ranking general officer of modern times. Initially used to delegate power, the term became formalised under Augustus as the officer in command of a legion.
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From the times of the Roman Republic, legates received large shares of the military's rewards at the end of a successful campaign. This made the position a lucrative one, so it could often attract even distinguished consuls or other high-ranking political figures within Roman politics (e.g., the consul Lucius Julius Caesar volunteered late in the Gallic Wars as a legate under his first cousin, Gaius Julius Caesar).