"There can be no doubt that the title Imperator properly
signifies one invested with Imperium, and it may very probably
have been assumed in ancient times by every general on whom
Imperium had been bestowed by a Lex Curiata. It is, however,
equally certain, that in those periods of the republic with
the history and usages of which we are most familiar, the
title Imperator was not assumed as a matter of course by those
who had received Imperium, but was, on the contrary, a much
valued and eagerly coveted distinction. Properly speaking, it
seems to have been in the gift of the soldiers, who hailed
their victorious leader by this appellation on the field of
battle; but occasionally, especially towards the end of the
commonwealth, it was conferred by a vote of the Senate. …
But the designation Imperator was employed under the empire in
a manner and with a force altogether distinct from that which
we have been considering. On this point we have the distinct
testimony of Dion Cassius (xliii. 44, comp. liii. 17), who
tells us that, in B. C. 46, the Senate bestowed upon Julius
Cæsar the title of Imperator, not in the sense in which it had
hitherto been applied, as a term of military distinction, but
as the peculiar and befitting appellation of supreme power,
and in this signification it was transmitted to his
successors, without, however, suppressing the original import
of the word. … Imperator, when used to denote supreme power,
comprehending in fact the force of the titles Dictator and
Rex, is usually, although not invariably, placed before the
name of the individual to whom it is applied."
_W. Ramsay,
Manual of Roman Antiquity,
chapter 5._
See, also,
ROME: B. C. 45-44.
IMPERATOR:
Final Signification of the Roman title.
"When the Roman princes had lost sight of the senate and of
their ancient capital, they easily forgot the origin and
nature of their legal power. The civil offices of consul, of
proconsul, of censor, and of tribune, by the union of which it
had been formed, betrayed to the people its republican
extraction. Those modest titles were laid aside; and if they
still distinguished their high station by the appellation of
Emperor, or Imperator, that word was understood in a new and
more dignified sense, and no longer denoted the general of the
Roman armies, but the sovereign of the Roman world. The name
of Emperor, which was at first of a military nature, was
associated with another of a more servile kind. The epithet of
Dominus, or Lord, in its primitive signification, was
expressive, not of the authority of a prince over his
subjects, or of a commander over his soldiers, but of the
despotic power of a master over his domestic slaves. Viewing
it in that odious light, it had been rejected with abhorrence
by the first Cæsars. Their resistance insensibly became more
feeble, and the name less odious; till at length the style of
'our Lord and Emperor' was not only bestowed by flattery, but
was regularly admitted into the laws and public monuments."
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 13._
See ROME: B. C. 31-A. D. 14.
----------IMPERATOR: End--------
IMPERIAL CHAMBER, The.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1493-1519.