Roman Emperor - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Roman Emperor appoints the leaders of the ancient Rome, since Auguste until the collapse of the Roman Empire of Occident and with the fall of the Byzantine Empire. This term does not define a precise and legal function but rather a conglomerate of capacities which could be added, to withdraw themselves or change with the courses of the centuries. Most famous of these capacities is the Impérium , the military capacity.

Like Paul Veyne writes it: The role of Roman Emperor was of an ambiguity to be made insane (...). César was to have four languages: that of a chief whose civil capacity is of military type and who gives orders; that of a higher being (but without being an alive god) towards which assembles a worship of the personality; that of a member of the large council of Empire, the Senate, where it is only the first among his pars, which do not tremble about it less for their head; that of the first magistrate of the Empire which communicates with its citizens and is explained in front of them.

The term imperator

The French term emperor comes from the Latin word imperator , which Latin word belongs to the family of imperare (to order) or imperium (command, to be able). The word imperator designates a victorious general having been acclaimed by its troops and having thus been entitled to the Triomphe, granted by the Senate. However, after the triumph, at the same time as its imperium (to be able to order the troops), it was to also deposit its title.

After Auguste, the title is carried like praenomen by all the Roman Emperors (see Latin epigraphy for more explanation on imperial titulature). From there the fact rises that the title imperator becomes primarily carried by the emperor. The victorious generals, even acclaimed by their soldiers, often see this acclamation being added to the list of those of the emperor.

The Romans generally abréviaient the term imperator in IMP. Suivait in imperial titulature the number of times where the emperor had been, personally or by its generals, acclaimed (the accession with the Empire cash for an acclamation). In addition to this precision, the word appeared as a first name of the emperor.

Principat

Octave spent more time than César to eliminate its adversaries in the race for the power, but it reached that point finally into -31 to Actium. Prudently, it avoided the titles of king and dictator, fatal in César; however, while preserving appearances of the Republic, it concentrated in its hands more and more republican functions: it was thirteen times Consul, and accepted the capacities of Censeur and Tribun of the plebs without to be elected with these magistratures. At the same time, it created other functions (Préfet S, legates of the imperial provinces,…) whose holders depended entirely on him.

Moreover, Octave was made decree by the Roman Sénat the titles of Imperator , Auguste and Princeps senatus (the first with speaking with the Senate). This last title, become “Prince” with the wire of time, made indicate under the name of Principat the form of capacity worked out by Auguste.

The first successors of Auguste (Julio-Claudiens, Flaviens, Antonins) took again this fiction of a government in the name of the Senate and the Roman people (SPQR = Senatus PopulusQue Romanus ), while concentrating personal capacity more and more. The words “Imperator” and “Augustus” became titles carried by each emperor.

The Roman République continued fictitiously, with its magistrates, but those all were indicated by the emperor instead of being elected. The Senate, composed members them such chosen by the emperors, confirmed the title of the new emperors, who came besides from his rows, and granted the Apothéose to the “good” emperors; the latter reached the row of god then and became the object of an official worship. Conversely, the Senate dedicated to the lapse of memory the hated emperors, by issuing to them Damnatio memoriae .

The emperors kept a popular side, while immersing themselves sometimes in the Roman people: Auguste challenged spectators of the circus since his imperial cabin; Néron, Trajan, Hadrian attended the public baths (cf Suétone).

The principat knows its apogee under the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian. This period will remain engraved in the memories during the remainder of Antiquity and even afterwards like that of a golden age, where peace and prosperity reign: it is famous the Pax Romana .

Military dictatorship

However, this peace was more fragile than it did not appear to with it: one of the last antonins, the Marc-Aurèle emperor, known as the emperor-philosopher bus it was indeed a large philosopher in the line of the stoical Greeks, passed most of its life to guerroyer at the borders.

Alas, his/her son and successor, Convenient, rather quickly became insane. Its assassination in 192 caused the crisis which brooded for a long time already. The principat does not survive it.

From 193, the army, or rather the armies, which had already played a crucial role at the time of the first year of the four emperors (69), becomes all-powerful in the emperor nomination. The emperor takes however care to make ratify his rise by the Senate, and thus maintains the fiction of the mode of Auguste. But after this crisis, the empire became a military empire (dynasty of the Sévère S).

After 268, the emperors do not belong any more to old the senatorial Ordre (except for Tacite between 275 and 276). They are for the majority of the soldiers assembled in rank (Empereurs it) who practically did not attend the town of Rome and his Senate. It is necessary because they are always on the breach, always at the borders to repress a rising or to contain a raid, with more or less of success besides.

Dominat

To face, the Roman Empire needs a capacity effective, therefore extremely and geared down. Dioclétien (reign from 283 to 305) completes to transform the principat dying man into a monarchy with the Eastern one. The emperor sacrilizes, takes the titles of Dominus and Deus (Lord and God). This new imperial mode is called Dominat.

Dioclétien preserved the concept of collegial imperial capacity inherited the dark moments of military anarchy, and systematized it under the name of Tétrarchie. In this mode, the capacity was shared on the one hand between two geographical poles, Orient and Occident, and on the other hand within each pole, between a titular emperor said Auguste and an assistant and successor indicated known as César . This organization, too theoretical because it implicitly supposed a good agreement between the various Co-emperors, hardly lasted beyond Dioclétien itself (the other tétrarques ones did not have its direction of the duty - - it is voluntarily the only emperor to have abdicated).

After twenty years of reign Dioclétien abdicated indeed and forced Maximien to do as much of it. Both Césars became Auguste and Dioclétien, it will be its ultimate instrument, associated two to them new Césars. It was to dedicate a too blind confidence with an abstract and theoretical system become to resist the conflicts between new Tétrarques and the descendants of the precedents.

Constantin Ier took again the title of Dominus , affirming to hold its capacity of a divine designation. The Senate and the Roman people did not delegate any more the power, even fictitiously. The emperor surrounded himself by a many court, and was more visible than with a protocol also majestic only heavy and rigid.

However, the division of the capacity between the East and Occident which had been thus officialized went perdurer while worsening during most of the 4th century by gradually bringing to the 5th century the final separation of the Roman Empire in two parts.

After the death of Théodose Ier in 395, the Empire was indeed divided between its sons, Honorius and Arcadius:

the Roman Empire of Occident of Latin language, with Rome, then Ravenne for capital;
the Roman Empire of the East , future Byzantine Empire , of Greek language, with Constantinople for capital, which will perdura thousand more years after the fall of Rome.

It is advisable to note however that they are not two officially separated states but simply a state divided into two to facilitate its management. The unit of the Empire remained, theoretically, assured. And in fact it was it more or less by the family ties between the two reigning families.

It is only in 450 that the Roman Empire is irrevocably divided, when there were not any more family ties between the two emperors.

Byzantine Empire

In 476, Odoacre, king of the Hérules, deposits Romulus Augustule, the emperor of the Western part of the Empire. But far from wishing to seize the imperial throne, it sends to Zénon, the emperor of the East, the badges of the load, as well as a tender with the authority of only the Auguste remaining. In return, Zénon entrusts the administration of Italy to Odoacre. Officially, the possession of Italy thus remains in Constantinople and the Empire, even if in the Zénon facts is strictly unable to oblige Odoacre to obey to him.

That testifies to immense prestige that still preserved the Roman Empire, even amputee of its Western part. Not only Odoacre was placed under the authority symbolic system of Zénon, but one finds this phenomenon elsewhere: at the Francs, however also of those which reflect Rome with bottom, Clovis wanted to be also attached to the memory of Urbs, and thus was very honoured to see itself entrusting the consular distinguished , term obsolete recovering a disappeared function, but which kept by its simple romanity an immense prestige.

Agent of the authority of Rome, and his prestige, the Roman Empire in his oriental party always had an immense prestige with the wire of the centuries.

Basileus

Among Greeks, the emperor was always called Basileus , i.e. king , because for the Greeks the royalty did not have the pejorative connotation which it covered among Romans. In 629, the emperor Héraclius took the title of Basileus, giving up the preceding Latin titles, but being always considered as emperor of the Romans.

The title of Basileus disappears definitively with the fall from Constantinople in 1453, even if the Russians sometimes regarded themselves as heirs to Byzance (Sophie Paléologue married Ivan III, Grand Prince de Moscou, and a few years later Ivan IV of Russia takes the title of Tsar , which marks filiation with Constantinople clearly).

The resurgence of the imperial title in Occident

It was necessary to wait more than three centuries before a prince in Occident takes again the title of emperor: Charlemagne in the year 800 was crowned by the Pope Leon III. This crowning was regarded as a usurpation by the capacity of Byzance.

Its crown will be transmitted in the Saint Germanic Roman Empire, heir to the frank Empire.

Chronological list

See too

ancient Rome
List of the Roman Emperors
Latin List of the Roman Emperors of the East
Emperor
Basileus
Épigraphie for imperial titulature

Saint Worsens

External bonds

http://www.empereurs-romains.net/

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