Others have said that when Julius Caesar, in the year of Rome 696, (58 B C.) got himself appointed proconsul in Gaul, his single aim was to form for himself there an army devoted to his person, of which he might avail himself to satisfy his ambition and make himself master of Rome.

Wherefore they regarded the people and the entire city as present there (the reason being that the consuls had not introduced the lex curiata), and they employed those same officials as formerly, only changing their names and calling some proconsuls, others propraetors, and others pro-quaestors.

Cicero in his third oration against Verres, when charging the proconsul with luxurious habits, stated that he had made the tour of Sicily seated upon roses.

Some naming one person, and others another, they at length came to the resolution that the people should assemble for the purpose of electing a proconsul for Spain, and the consuls fixed a day for the election.

The emperor gives certain injunctions to the procurators, the proconsuls, and the proprætors, in order that they may proceed to their place of office on fixed conditions.

They endured having the two proconsuls named by the praetor urbanus rather than to have the consuls elected under his direction, because now these proconsular officials would limit their activities to the elections and consequently would appear to have been invested with no powers outlasting them.

Thus, in November 82, he was formally invested with despotic power over the lives and property of his fellow-citizens, could contract or extend the frontiers of the State, could change as he pleased the constitution of the Italian towns and the provinces, could legislate for the future, could nominate proconsuls and propraetors, and could retain his absolute power as long as he liked.

The proconsul of the Romans summons a man and the latter does not come: then one of the Allobroges [sic] summons the proconsul of the Romans.