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Bible Dictionaries
Praetorium
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
or PRÆTORIUM (Gr. praitôrion ) occurs only once in AV [Note: Authorized Version.] ( Mark 15:18 ). Elsewhere it is represented by ‘common hall’ ( Matthew 27:27 , RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘ palace ’), ‘judgment hall’ ( John 18:28; John 18:33; John 19:9 , Acts 23:25; RV [Note: Revised Version.] in all ‘ palace ’) and ‘palace’ ( Philippians 1:18 , RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘ prætorian guard ’). The word at first denoted the headquarters in the Roman camp, a space within which stood the general’s tent, the camp altar, the augurâle , and the tribûnâl; then the military council meeting there. Each prætor, on completing his year of office, went as governor to a province, and his official residence was called ‘prætorium’; then any house distinguished by size and magnificence, esp. the Emperor’s residence outside Rome. In the Gospels, prætorium perhaps (but see Pilate, p. 729 a ) stands for the palace of Herod the Great, occupied by Pontius Pilate a splendid building, probably in the western part of the city. In Philippians 1:13 it is probably the barracks of the prætorians, the Imperial bodyguard. Originally the Cohors Prætoria was a company attached to the commander-in-chief in the field. Augustus retained the name, but raised the number to ten cohorts of 1000 each, quartering only 3 cohorts in the city at a time. Tiberius brought them all to Rome, and placed them in a fortified camp, at the northern extremity of the Viminal. Under Vitellius their number was raised to 16,000.
W. Ewing.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Praetorium'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/p/praetorium.html. 1909.
