{{short description|Position in the Roman and Byzantine militaries}} Α '''''strator''''' ({{langx|el|στράτωρ}}) was a position in the Roman and Byzantine militaries roughly equivalent to a groom. The word is derived from Latin ''sternere'' ("to strew", i.e. hay, straw).
The ''strator'' (in Greek narrative sources often replaced with the Greek equivalent of ''hippokomos'') was typically a soldier, sometimes even a centurion, who was chosen from the ranks to act as a groom for a senior officer or civil official. His tasks included attending to and even procuring horses, and the supervision of the stable.<ref name="PW">{{cite encyclopedia | last = Lammert | first = F. |title = Strator | encyclopedia = Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft | volume = Band IVA, Halbband 7, Stoa-Symposion | year = 1931 | page=330}}</ref><ref name="ODB">{{ODB | last = Kazhdan | first = Alexander | authorlink = Alexander Kazhdan | title = Strator | page = 1967 }}</ref> In the Roman Empire, the ''stratores'' of the imperial court formed a distinct corps, the ''schola stratorum'', headed by the Count of the Stable (''comes stabuli''), and later, in the middle Byzantine period, the ''protostrator'' (πρωτοστράτωρ, "first ''strator''").<ref name="PW"/><ref name="ODB"/> In the provincial administration, senior ''stratores'' chosen among centurions etc. were typically members of the staff of Roman governors and in turn headed other, more junior ''stratores''.<ref name="PW"/>
In the Byzantine Empire, the title was more generally used as an honorific dignity for mid-level civil and military officials from the 8th century on, which led to the actual grooms of the imperial court being distinguished as "''stratores'' of the imperial ''stratorikion''".<ref name="ODB"/> The dignity of the ''strator'' belonged to those intended for "bearded men" (i.e. non-eunuchs), and was conferred by the award of an insigne (''dia brabeiou axia''), in this case a jewelled gold whip. It ranked relatively low in the imperial hierarchy: in the ''Kletorologion'' of 899, it ranks sixth from the bottom, above the ''kandidatos'' and below the ''hypatos''.<ref>{{cite book|last=Bury|first=John B.|authorlink=J. B. Bury|title=The Imperial Administrative System of the Ninth Century: With a Revised Text of the Kletorologion of Philotheos|year=1911|location=London|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=https://archive.org/details/imperialadminist00buryrich|page=[https://archive.org/details/imperialadminist00buryrich/page/22 22]}}</ref>
The title appears in Western Europe from the mid-8th century onwards, possibly under Byzantine influence. The variant form ''starator'' is attested in the Kingdom of Cyprus in 1402.<ref name="ODB"/>
==References== {{reflist}}
Category:Byzantine court titles Category:Horse-related professions and professionals Category:Latin words and phrases