I was reading about Justice Scalia's "personal praetorian guard," which prompted me to find out more about the word "praetorian." Some dictionaries just said that it came from "praetor," which means "an annually elected magistrate of the ancient Roman Republic." Yet, it also has a corrupt meaning to it, so I went to Google to find more about that.
That's when I found a reference to the "Praetorian Pi." What is that? Is it related to the word "praetorian" or did someone just make it up?
Prætor was a title in Latin. From the verb præeo 'to go before, lead the way, precede'; cf. præsidens 'sitting before or in front of'. Specifically, in the Roman Republic, the prætor was a 'magistrate charged with the administration of justice'. There were two of them: a prætor urbanus for Roman citizens and a prætor peregrinus for foreigners. Later, in the Roman Empire, there were the prætoriani or Praetorian Guards, who were a kind of imperial body guard. Another related word is prætorium which was originally a general's tent, but came to mean a palace orany other kind of huge building. Later, it just meant the imperial bodyguards. The leader of the Praetorians was called a præfectus prætorio. Later on, this office and the body of soldiers it commanded became a sort of electorial college, deciding who the emperor would be, and accepting large amounts of money to help in the decision making. The Praetorian Prefect became the de facto boss of Rome.
Yes, Jerry, that was the site I had found. However, it wasn't exactly elucidating about how the "praetorian pi" came about. Is this something that is well-known on the Internet, or is this something just talked about in that Web site?
accepting large amounts of money to help in the decision making.
jheem, was this how the corrupt meaning came about?
