Legatus

A legatus (often anglicized as "legate") was equivalent to a modern general officer in the Roman army. Being of senatorial rank, his immediate superior was the dux, and he outranked all military tribunes. In order to command an army independently of the dux or provincial governor, legates were required to be of praetorian rank or higher; a legate could be invested with propraetorian imperium (legatus propraetore) in his own right. Legates received large shares of the army's booty at the end of a campaign, and for this reason the position was a lucrative one, and could often attract even distinguished consulars (e.g., the consular Lucius Julius Caesar volunteered late in the Gallic War as a legate under his first cousin, once removed, Julius Caesar).