The fate of any armed conflict has always been in the hands of intelligence, since Roman times training specialized soldiers to this day with the most advanced computerized espionage tools.
Collecting and selecting information and clues to the enemy's military activities or potential enemy was at the base of Rome's military successes; this activity did not take place only outside the capital or in the Roman provinces, but it took place within the city walls by so many men at the service of the Emperor of the moment, ready to crush any conspiracy or project of revolt at birth.
The emperors who fell at the hands of rioters and conspirators probably did not organize an efficient intelligence service or they were sold to the enemy; alongside unsuspecting men played an important role for women considered incapable of betraying, their hearing was considered superior to that of male colleagues and their work was notable both in civil and military.
Originally, since the time of Hadrian, there were the frumentarii o Truthic mensores, officially employed to supply the legions in reality came to assume the role of couriers or rather secret police agents, precisely because of their attitude of travelers where they came in contact with the peasants, servants and troops, they were aware of the secrets of all and therefore considered particularly valuable for the maintenance of the security of the Senate and the Emperor.
Some frumentariiaccording to their personal attitudes, they changed their passive role as a listener in a secret courier. The most enterprising were armed and, if necessary, they had the license to pass traitors to arms; this marks the passage from a body dedicated to gathering information to a judging and executive body.
Alongside the frumentarii who operated in disguise there were the exploratores who were moving in groups, joining the legionary troops and monitoring the enemy territory, were in charge of external security; for the internal one there were also the Speculatores they also operate silently and cunningly.
All the intelligence "employees" operated at full capacity in times of war, but during times of peace many of them were diverted to other positions, leaving the job of informers to merchants and diplomats; the Magister officiorum, the high official on whom they depended, kept them under strict control, given the strategic importance of their knowledge.
It was with Diocletian (284-305 dc) that the figure of the secret agent was institutionalized with the birth of the agentes in rebus, which were formed in a real "Choir" of the palace and considered to all effects a militia; they were distinguished in various professionalities, mainly in equités, circitores, biarchi, centenarii, ducenarii and they monitored the entire Roman province as a control organ superior to the local governors, for this reason they were very feared, depending on their relations depended on the career or the life itself of the governors.
Given the vital importance of their work they were very much taken into account by the emperors on duty, so much so that at the end of their mandate, if carried out impeccably, they were "graduated" cum promotion to hold important government positions.
As seniors they were promoted to officii princeps of the Praetorian prefectures where they exercised their control action on the bureaucracy enjoying both civil and criminal judicial immunity; some of them were appointed inspectors (curious) performing their function above the provinces.
Cases in which the great power concentrated in their hands were translated into illicit conduct were not rare; the Roman philosopher Libario he openly accused them of "gross conduct" as the emperor's controllers turned into extortionists, assuming attitudes that terrified the administrators of the provinces who had no power against men above any law.
In the social climb of the frumentarii one reads and understands the decline of Rome; they were involved in the supply of wheat, faithful servants of an ideal and of the Emperor; some centuries later they occupied important offices of government, oppressors and extortionists of the provinces, fomented the hatred of those who suffered their abuses.
It is the beginning of the end of Rome, fidelity has replaced egoism, hatred has been substituted for the subjects; this is both ancient and modern history, everything is repeated equally in changing contexts.
