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Did the Roman Emperor actually call himself “the Emperor,” or some version of such? Or was he more subtle about it, taking on a title more similar to “President For Life”?
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Is it correct to refer to the Roman Republic as an ‘empire’ as well?
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When in Roman history did the Romans stop refering to their nation as the Roman Republic (Respublica Romana, if I remember Latin class correctly) and start referring to their state as the Imperium Romanum, if ever? If neither of these, does anyone know what they actually CALLED their nation? Just Roma perhaps?
Roman emporers after Julius, and Julius himself, were called “Caesar” (pronounced Kaisar).
But was that a title, or just some way to help maintain some bit of legitimacy by attaching yourself to some famous past ruler?
Essentially the latter. The actual titles and official powers of the “Roman Emperors” were basically extralegal and very complex (as was just about everything about Roman government, which made the U.S. system of “checks and balances” three branches of government combined with federalism between state and federal look straightforward by comparison). Translating things, not literally but idiomatically, although history books will sometimes say Augustus Caesar “replaced the Republic with the Empire in 27 B.C.E. and was the first Emperor”, what officially and propagandistically happened was that Octavian Caesar “restored the Republic”, and in their gratitude the Senate made him President for Life. No doubt few people were fooled that anyone but “the Leader”, “First Citizen Augustus” was in charge, but he definitely didn’t assume any title with the monarchical overtones of the modern English word “emperor”, for basically the same reason that a dictator in the U.S. would be unlikely to have himself crowned “King of America”: Rome had a strong tradition of republican government (not monarchical, not democratic but in some sense representative, and with power distributed among various magistrates and councils rather than having a single all-powerful hereditary ruler). Romans (like Americans) also had a strong tradition of having overthrown foreign kings in order to found their republic; the last thing a savvy politician, even a dictatorial one, would do is make himself “king” or anything like that. Augustus was in many respects a military dictator, but the sort who is careful to wear business suits in public after being made President for Life and eschew the appearance of being a military dictator.
Of course at that point, apart from sentiment and tradition, the Roman political tradition was pretty well shot to hell, as the old political order had given way to civil wars, political purges, juntas (“triumvirates”), and control over an extensive foreign empire.
The Republic was obviously not an empire in the sense of “a state ruled by an emperor”, but it was most definitely an empire in the sense of “A political unit having an extensive territory or comprising a number of territories or nations and ruled by a single supreme authority”. The French Republic also ruled over an extensive empire in this sense from the end of Napoleon III’s (formal) empire until de-colonization after World War II.
I believe the “Byzantine” emperors were still using the “SPQR” (Senatus Populusque Romanus, “Senate and People of Rome”) emblems right up until the Turks took Constantinople in 1453 C.E. “Imperium” translated more as political power or authority, or “empire” in the functional sense (ruling many territories and nations) rather than in the monarchical or legal sense (being ruled over by an emperor–a male monarch with greater dignity than a king).
It’s the wrong starting point to transfer modern constitutional ideas and concepts of “state” into antiquity; the modern notion of a state is essentially a product of more recent times (16th/17th century). Rome did not have a constitution, and there were no official titles used for the office of the emperor; different emperors preferred to be called differently, IIRC popular forms of address were princeps, caesar, and dominus.
Similar for the name of the state. There was no official name for the legal entity; it mgiht have been common to refer to the conglomerate of provinces, municipalities and vassals with different degrees of dependence as Imperium Romanum.