Α strator (Greek: 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.[1][2] 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").[1][2] 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.[1]
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".[2] 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.[3]
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.[2]