Vicarius

As Vicar (plural: vicarii ) a deputy particular officer or officers designated in the Roman Empire. The German term vicar comes from that fact.

The word appears already in Cicero or Livy. The function of a vicar was mainly from the 3rd century AD and in late antiquity distribution. Spreads were vicars of equestrian rank as a proxy for senatorial governor. The most famous vicars were the deputy of late antiquity praetorian prefect, each of which was subject to a diocese in which they particularly had jurisdiction.

Even slaves could have a vicar called deputies, a " sub- slaves ", which they had acquired from their own assets ( peculium ).