Pay and Privileges

Regular Salary

In the time of Augustus, Praetorian soldiers were paid at a scale 1.5 times that which legionaries received in salary; later Augustus raised Guard pay even further, to three times the legionary rate.  For their part, the legionary pay scales had not changed since Caesar's day (he had doubled the pay for a common soldier to 225 denarii per year), and would not rise again until Domitian's reign.

Under Augustus, a basic legionary centurion received five times a Praetorian ranker's wage, while the highest centurionate rank, primus pilus, received 20 times the Praetorian salary, with all other benefits being commensurately higher.  It should thus be expected that the pay of a Praetorian centurion was even more lucrative.

Under Caracalla, a Praetorian Guardsman received 10,000 sesterces in pay compared to the legionary's 3,000.

Occasional Bonuses

At his death, Augustus' will stipulated that each Praetorian receive a conservative donative of 1,000 sesterces, while the Urbani and legionaries received 500 and 300 apiece. Tiberius' will followed the same practice of a moderate posthumous bonus for the military.

Claudius, upon his accession, nervously retreated to the former practice of the civil warlords of the dying Republic, by granting an exorbitant donative of 15,000 sesterces per man for his Praetorians.  This was five times a year's pay for a Guardsman, and by Campbell's estimates, the total donative to both Guard and legions would have cost the imperial treasury more than twice the total annual military payroll.  Dio says, without specifics, that Nero promised the Guard all that Claudius had given them.

Nero also gave his Praetorians a donative of 2,000 sesterces per man for their restraint during the Pisonian conspiracy of 65 CE, and as a further benefit, he granted them the right to requisition free grain for their monthly rations, instead of having to deduct it from their salary as other soldiers must.

Galba's proxies promised 30,000 sesterces apiece to the Guard and 5,000 to each of his legionaries, but when Galba himself would not honor the deal, the Guard quickly turned against him.  Otho and Vitellius, the two other deposed claimants of the "Long Year" of 69 CE, also promised -- but presumably paid -- donatives to their armies.

Vespasian, at least, did not promise the moon to his soldiers.  Evidence is vague but it does appear that he paid the accustomed donative upon his eventual accession to the purple.  This would put him in the 15,000-sestercius range offered previously by Claudius and Nero.  He might even have reduced the bonus to 10,000 sesterces.

Upon Domitian's accession, only a donative of 100 sesterces was recorded, although Campbell points out that this may have represented a kind of "down payment" for a later, larger bonus.

It is unknown what amount, if any, Nerva and Trajan paid upon their elevations.  Hadrian, according to the Historia Augusta, paid a double-amount, presumably of what had become the standard sum.  The latter sum is unclear, however.

It surely could not responsibly have exceeded 20,000 sesterces, which was the amount bestowed by Marcus Aurelius and perhaps his predecessor Antoninus Pius.  That being the probable amount, the standard sum for accessional donatives from Nerva forward (and perhaps as early as the conservative Vespasian) should have been about 10,000 sesterces.

The largest attested donative was promised to the Praetorians by Didius Julianus: a literal "bid" (which they accepted) of 25,000 sesterces per man in exchange for elevating him to the purple.  Thereafter, known donatives declined.  Septimius Severus, while promising a large sum, actually got away with a real payment of only 1,000 sesterces apiece, in spite of his soldiers' demand for 10,000!  After Elagabalus, there is no evidence surviving, but it seems likely the later Empire's finances would have been decreasingly able to afford extravagant bonuses which a healthier treasury could absorb.

Revealing the shape of things to come, Marcus Aurelius (according to Dio) had refused a request for a victory bonus from his soldiers fighting the Germans, telling them that anything more than their salary would only be squeezed from the blood of their relatives and families.  As the treasury was drained by the rapacious military budget and a declining tax base due to war and plague in the late 2nd c. CE, the clock began to wind down on the fortunes of the Roman Empire.

Retirement

Brian Campbell has estimated that about 280 Guardsmen were discharged each year.

Upon discharge, each Praetorian veteran in Augustan times was granted a bonus of 20,000 sesterces. (This is in contrast to legionaries who received 12,000 sesterces at that time.  Later, under Caracalla, the praemia increased to 20,000 sesterces for legionaries and a presumably higher but unspecified amount for Praetorians.)

Unlike legionaries, a retiring Guardsman received a discharge certificate, termed by scholars a diploma, verifying his faithful service and granting him the right of legal marriage.  While auxiliaries and fleet veterans also received diplomata, the formulaic wording of the Praetorian diploma was distinctive and meant to convey a special relationship with the Emperor, for it was addressed directly from the Emperor to the retiree, not written in the less intimate third person as found in auxiliary and fleet diplomas.

For evidence of this special bond the Praetorians perceived with their Emperor, Dio relates their conduct at the funeral of Augustus.  After the centurions of the Praetorian cohorts had lit the old Emperor's wooden funeral pyre, many Guardsmen who had received decorations from his hand ran up to the blazing bier and pitched their awards in, as a sacrificial show of grief.

Like discharged legionaries and auxiliaries, time-served Praetorians were encouraged to take up residence in special veterans' colonies, such as the  colonia Augusta Praetoria, chartered by Augustus in 25 BCE in the newly-subjugated lands of the alpine tribe of Salassi.<br>The peculiar institution of the colonia served two pragmatic functions for Rome -- it provided a reserve military presence in remote and frequently restive regions, and over time, it helped to spread Roman culture and values among foreign peoples, building a larger Roman identity among the peoples of the Empire.