What is "praetorships"

Usage examples of "praetorships".

Then he decided that Spock, who had somehow maintained a subterranean existence on Romulus through four praetorships and the assassination of an emperor, knew better than anyone when it wasn’t safe to put one’s head up.

Avarice had become the sole ambition—men desired praetorships and provinces only as the license to pillage, and government was but the excuse of rapine.