Proconsul
- For the Miocene ape, see Proconsul (genus)
In ancient Rome's empire
- In the Roman Republic, a proconsul was a promagistrate who, after serving as consul, spent a year as a governor of a province. Certain provinces were reserved for proconsuls; who received which one by senatorial appointment was determined by random choosing or negotiation between the two proconsuls.
- Under the Empire, the Emperor derived a good part of his powers (alongside the military imperium and the tribunician power and presidency of the senate in Rome) from a constitutionally 'exceptional' (but permanent) mandate as the holder of proconsular authority over all hence so-called Imperial provinces, generally with one or more legions garrizoned; however, he would appoint legates and other ?promagistrates to govern them in his name. The former Consuls (constitutionally still eponymic chief magistrates, politically powerless) would still receive a term as proconsul of one of the other, so-called Senatorial provinces.
- The notitia dignitatum (a unique early Vth century imperial chancery document) still mentions three Proconsuls, protocollary apparently even above the Vicars of the dioceses wich had been set, in turn under the pretorianprefects, above all governors since Diocletian's Tetrarchy :
- in the eastern empire Asia ([Minor], part of Anatolia) and Achaia (i.e. Greece)
- in the western empire only Africa (mainly modern Tunisia); Propraetors have completely disappeared.
The many other, often new or split, provinces are under governors of various other -younger, usually less prestigious- styles : Comes, Praefectus Augustalis (unique to Egypt, the emperor's 'pharaonic crown domain'), Comes militaris, Dux, Consularis, Praeses (provinciae), Corrector.
By analogy
In modern speech, a leader appointed by a foreign power during military occupation or colonization is sometimes anachronistically described as a proconsul. For example, Douglas MacArthur was referred to as the Proconsul of Japan, and the Wall Street Journal described the USCivilian Administrator of Iraq as a "modern proconsul".