Imperator

When Rome was ruled by kings, to be able to rule, the king had to be invested with the full regal authority and power. So, after the comitia curiata that was held to elect the king, the king also had to be conferred the imperium.

In Roman Republican literature and epigraphy, an imperator was a magistrate with imperium. During the later Roman Republic and during the late Republican civil wars, imperator mainly was the honorific title assumed by certain military commanders. After an especially great victory, an army's troops in the field would proclaim their commander imperator, an acclamation necessary for a general to apply to the Senate for a triumph. After being acclaimed imperator, the victorious general had a right to use the title after his name until the time of his triumph, where he would relinquish the title as well as his imperium. Since a triumph was the goal of many politically ambitious commanders, republican history is full of cases where legions were bribed to call their commander imperator.

List of Imperatores

Julius Caesar was the first to use the title of imperator permanently. Cassius Dio (2nd-3rd century AD) writes that the Roman senate recognized imperator as Caesar's hereditary title, but this is doubtful. In 38 BC, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa refused a triumph for his victories under Octavian's ultimate command and established the convention whereby the princeps received the salutations and triumphs of his legates. After this, Octavian appears to have used imperator as a praenomen (Imperator Caesar, as opposed to Caesar Imperator), "perhaps intending to emphasize the personal and family value of the title." Imperator subsequently came to signify the supreme authority and was often used in this fashion. But Otho (r. 69 AD) was the first to officially imitate Augustus in using the title, and it was only under Vespasian (r. 69-79 AD) that Imperator ('emperor') became a "title by which the ruler was known." Sometimes relatives of the princeps who were "associated with him in power" were also given the title Imperator Caesar. After the death of a princeps or during a rebellion, the salutation of a general as imperator by an army meant that he was that army's candidate for the role of emperor.

The old practice of placing imperator after the name persisted after the term's adoption as a praenomen. After a victory, the emperor registered his salutation as imperator after his name. For example, Trajan was styled "Imp. Caesar…Traianus…imp. VI" after a sixth salutation as imperator for a victory. From the second half of the third century, the salutation of the emperor as imperator was deemed to occur every year, so the number of salutations became indistinguishable from the number of years of an emperor's reign.

After the Roman empire collapsed in the West in the fifth century, Latin continued to be used as the official language of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Roman emperors of this period (historiographically referred to as Byzantine emperors) were referred to as imperatores in Latin texts, while the word basileus (king) and autokrator (emperor) were used in Greek.

Beginning in 1077, Alfonso VI of León and Castile instituted the use of the style ego Adefonsus imperator totius Hispaniae ("I, Alfonso, emperor of all Spain") and its use soon became regular. This title was used throughout the period 1079-1081, which represents the peak of his imperial pretensions before his capture of the city of Toledo, ancient capital of the Visigoths. In 1080, he introduced the form ego Adefonsus Hispaniarum imperator ("I, Alfonso, emperor of the Spains"), which he used again in 1090. His most elaborate imperial title was ego Adefonsus imperator totius Castelle et Toleto necnon et Nazare seu Alave ("I, Alfonso, emperor of all Castile and of Toledo also and of Nájera, or Álava").

After the Ottoman Empire conquered both the Balkan peninsula (Rumeli in Turkish meaning "lands of Rome") and Constantinople, the Turkish ruler claimed to have become the Caesar of Rome (sultan-ı iklim-i Rûm). In the fifteenth century Bayezid II established diplomatic relations with some Christian European states, and sent a document to the King of Poland in which he used the titles Sultan Dei gratia Asie, Grecie etc. Imperator Maximus ("with help of God, emperor of Asia and Greece"). Like his predecessor, Selim I titled himself imperator in diplomatic correspondence (per la Divina favente clementia Grande Imperator di Constantinopoli, di Asia, Europa, Persia, Syria et Egypto et Arabia et de li mari etc.) due to his military successes.

The feminine equivalent imperatrix was rarely used. Cicero used it ironically for Clodia in 56 BC, but it was not until the mid-5th century that an actual empress, Pulcheria Augusta, used the title.

Imperator is the root for the word for emperor of most Romance languages. It is the root of the English word "emperor", which entered the language via the French empereur, while related adjectives such as "imperial" were imported into English directly from Latin.