Roman emperor

For The ruler of the Roman Kingdom in the archaic period, see Kings of Rome. For the dual chief magistrates
during the Roman Republic, see Roman consul. For the
Roman emperors, see List of Roman emperors.

mony of Christianity, the emperor came to be seen as

Gods chosen ruler and as a special protector and leader
of the Christian Church on Earth, although in practice
an emperors authority on Church matters was subject to
challenge.

The Western Roman Empire collapsed in the late 5th

century. Romulus Augustulus is often considered to be
the last emperor of the west after his forced abdication in 476, although Julius Nepos maintained a claim
to the title until his death in 480. Meanwhile, in the
east, emperors continued to rule from Constantinople
(New Rome); these are referred to in modern scholarship as "Byzantine emperor" but they used no such title and called themselves Roman Emperor (
). Constantine XI was the last Byzantine RoThe legitimacy of an emperors rule depended on his con- man emperor in Constantinople, dying in the Fall of Control of the army and recognition by the Senate; an em- stantinople to the Ottomans in 1453.
peror would normally be proclaimed by his troops, or in- Due to the cultural rupture of the Turkish conquest, most
vested with imperial titles by the Senate, or both. The western historians treat Constantine XI as last meaningful
rst emperors reigned alone; later emperors would some- claimant to the title Roman Emperor, although from this
times rule with co-Emperors and divide administration of date Ottoman rulers were titled Caesar of Rome (Turkthe Empire between them.
ish: Kayser-i Rum)[6] until the Ottoman Empire ended in
The Romans considered the oce of emperor to be dis- 1922. A Byzantine group of claimant Roman Emperors
tinct to that of a king. The rst emperor, Augustus, reso- existed in the Empire of Trebizond until its conquest by
lutely refused recognition as a monarch.[1] Although Au- the Ottomans in 1461. In western Europe the title of Rogustus could claim that his power was authentically Re- man Emperor was revived by Germanic rulers, the "Holy
publican, his successor, Tiberius, could not convincingly Roman Emperors", in 800, and was used until 1806.

The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State

during the imperial period (starting in 27 BC). The emperors used a variety of dierent titles throughout history. Often when a given Roman is described as becoming emperor in English, it reects his taking of the
title augustus or caesar. Another title often used was
imperator, originally a military honoric. Early Emperors
also used the title princeps. Emperors frequently amassed
Republican titles, notably princeps Senatus, consul and
Pontifex Maximus.

make the same claim.[2] Nonetheless, for the rst three

hundred years of Roman Emperors, from Augustus until
Diocletian, a great eort was made to emphasize that the
Emperors were the leaders of a Republic.

1 Background and rst Roman emperor

From Diocletian onwards, emperors ruled in an openly

monarchic style[3] and did not preserve the nominal principle of a republic, but the contrast with kings was
maintained: although the imperial succession was generally hereditary, it was only hereditary if there was
a suitable candidate acceptable to the army and the
bureaucracy,[4] so the principle of automatic inheritance
was not adopted. Elements of the Republican institutional framework (senate, consuls, and magistrates) were
preserved until the very end of the Western Empire.

Modern historians conventionally regard Augustus as the

rst Emperor whereas Julius Caesar is considered the last
dictator of the Roman Republic, a view having its origins in the Roman writers Plutarch, Tacitus and Cassius
Dio.[7] However, the majority of Roman writers, including Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius and Appian,
as well as most of the ordinary people of the Empire,
thought of Julius Caesar as the rst Emperor.[8]

At the end of the Roman Republic no new, and certainly

no single, title indicated the individual who held supreme
power. Insofar as emperor could be seen as the English
translation of imperator, then Julius Caesar had been an
emperor, like several Roman generals before him. Instead, by the end of the civil wars in which Julius Caesar
In addition to their pontical oce, some emperors were had led his armies, it became clear on the one hand that
given divine status after death. With the eventual hege- there was certainly no consensus to return to the old-style
The Eastern (Byzantine) emperors ultimately adopted the
title of "Basileus" (), which had meant king in
Greek, but became a title reserved solely for the Roman
emperor and the ruler of the Sasanian Empire. Other
kings were then referred to as rgas.[5]

CLASSICAL PERIOD

rial consent an increasing number of the titles and ofces that had accrued to Caesar. A decade after Caesars
death, Octavians victory over his erstwhile ally Mark
Antony at Actium put an end to any eective opposition
and conrmed Octavians supremacy.
In 27 BC, Octavian appeared before the Senate and offered to retire from active politics and government; the
Senate not only requested he remain, but increased his
powers and made them lifelong, awarding him the title of
Augustus (the elevated or divine one, somewhat less than
a god but approaching divinity). Augustus stayed in oce
until his death; the sheer breadth of his superior powers
as princeps and permanent imperator of Romes armies
guaranteed the peaceful continuation of what nominally
remained a republic. His restoration of powers to the
Senate and the people of Rome was a demonstration of
his auctoritas and pious respect for tradition.
Even at Augustus death, some later historians such as
Tacitus would say that the true restoration of the Republic might have been possible. Instead, Augustus actively
prepared his adopted son Tiberius to be his replacement
and pleaded his case to the Senate for inheritance through
merit. The Senate disputed the issue but eventually conrmed Tiberius as princeps. Once in power, Tiberius
took considerable pains to observe the forms and day-today substance of republican government.

2 Classical period
Statue of Augustus, c. 30 BC20 BC; this statue is located in the
Louvre

Rome used no single constitutional oce, title or rank

exactly equivalent to the English title Roman emperor.
Romans of the Imperial era used several titles to denote their emperors, and all were associated with the preImperial, Republican era.

monarchy, and that on the other hand the situation where

several ocials, bestowed with equal power by the sen- The emperors legal authority derived from an extraordinary concentration of individual powers and oces that
ate, fought one another had to come to an end.
were extant in the Republic rather than coming from a
Julius Caesar, then Augustus after him, accumulated of- new political oce; emperors were regularly elected to
ces and titles of the highest importance in the Republic,
the oces of consul and censor. Among their permanent
making the power attached to these oces permanent, privileges were the traditional Republican title of princeps
and preventing anyone with similar aspirations from acsenatus (leader of the Senate) and the religious oce of
cumulating or maintaining power for themselves. How- pontifex maximus (chief priest of the Roman state). Evever, Julius Caesar, unlike those after him, did so without ery emperor held the latter oce and title until Gratian
the Senates vote and approval.
surrendered it in 382 AD to Pope Siricius; it eventually
Julius Caesar held the Republican oces of consul four became an auxiliary honor of the Bishop of Rome.
times and dictator ve times, was appointed dictator in These titles and oces conferred great personal presperpetuity (dictator perpetuo) in 45 BC and had been tige (dignitas) but the basis of an emperors powers depontifex maximus for several decades. He gained these rived from his auctoritas: this assumed his greater powpositions by senatorial consent. By the time of his as- ers of command (imperium maius) and tribunician power
sassination, he was the most powerful man in the Roman (tribunicia potestas) as personal qualities, independent of
world.
his public oce. As a result, he formally outranked
In his will, Caesar appointed his adopted son Octavian as
his heir. On Caesars death, Octavian inherited his adoptive fathers property and lineage, the loyalty of most of
his allies and - again through a formal process of senato-

provincial governors and ordinary magistrates. He had

the right to enact or revoke sentences of capital punishment, was owed the obedience of private citizens (privati) and by the terms of the ius auxiliandi could save

2.2

Princeps

any plebeian from any patrician magistrates decision. He

could veto any act or proposal of any magistrate, including the tribunes of the people (ius intercedendi or ius intercessionis). His person was held to be sacrosanct.
Roman magistrates on ocial business were expected to
wear the form of toga associated with their oce; dierent togas were worn by dierent ranks; senior magistrates
had the right to togas bordered with purple. A triumphal
imperator of the Republic had the right to wear the toga
picta (of solid purple, richly embroidered) for the duration of the triumphal rite. During the Late Republic, the
most powerful had this right extended. Pompey and Caesar are both thought to have worn the triumphal toga and
other triumphal dress at public functions. Later emperors were distinguished by wearing togae purpurae, purple
togas; hence the phrase to don the purple for the assumption of imperial dignity.
The titles customarily associated with the imperial dignity are imperator (commander), which emphasizes the
emperors military supremacy and is the source of the
English word emperor; caesar, which was originally a
name but it came to be used for the designated heir (as
Nobilissimus Caesar, Most Noble Caesar) and was retained upon accession. The ruling emperors title was the
descriptive augustus (majestic or venerable, which
had tinges of the divine), which was adopted upon accession. In Greek, these three titles were rendered as
autokratr (""), kaisar (""), and
augoustos ("") or sebastos ("") respectively. In Diocletian's Tetrarchy, the traditional seniorities were maintained: Augustus was reserved for the
two senior emperors and Caesar for the two junior emperors each delegated a share of power and responsibility but each an emperor-in-waiting, should anything befall
his senior.
As princeps senatus (lit., rst man of the senate), the
emperor could receive foreign embassies to Rome; some
emperors (such as Tiberius) are known to have delegated
this task to the Senate. In modern terms these early emperors would tend to be identied as chiefs of state. The
oce of princeps senatus, however, was not a magistracy
and did not entail imperium. At some points in the Empires history, the emperors power was nominal; powerful praetorian prefects, masters of the soldiers and on
a few occasions, other members of the Imperial household including Imperial mothers and grandmothers acted
as the true source of power.

2.1

Imperator

3
triumphal commander retained the title until the end of
his magistracy.[9] Roman tradition held the rst triumph
as that of Romulus but the rst attested recipient of the
title imperator in a triumphal context is Aemilius Paulus
in 189 BC.[9] It was a title held with great pride: Pompey
was hailed imperator more than once, as was Sulla, but
it was Julius Caesar who rst used it permanently - according to Dio, this was a singular and excessive form of
attery granted by the Senate, passed to Caesars adopted
heir along with his name and virtually synonymous with
it.[10]
In 38 BC Agrippa refused a triumph for his victories under Octavian's command and this precedent established
the rule that the princeps should assume both the salutation and title of imperator. It seems that from then on
Octavian (later rst emperor Augustus) used imperator
as a praenomen (Imperator Caesar not Caesar imperator).
From this the title came to denote the supreme power and
was commonly used in that sense. Otho was the rst to
imitate Augustus but only with Vespasian did imperator
(emperor) become the ocial title by which the ruler of
the Roman Empire was known.

2.2

Princeps

The word princeps (plural principes), meaning rst, was

a republican term used to denote the leading citizen(s)
of the state. It was a purely honoric title with no attached duties or powers. It was the title most preferred
by Caesar Augustus as its use implies only primacy, as
opposed to another of his titles, imperator, which implies
dominance. Princeps, because of its republican connotation, was most commonly used to refer to the emperor in
Latin (although the emperors actual constitutional position was essentially pontifex maximus with tribunician
power and imperium superseding all others) as it was
in keeping with the faade of the restored Republic; the
Greek word basileus (king) was modied to be synonymous with emperor (and primarily came into favour after
the reign of Heraclius) as the Greeks had no republican
sensibility and openly viewed the emperor as a monarch.
In the era of Diocletian and beyond, princeps fell into disuse and was replaced with dominus (lord);[11] later emperors used the formula Imperator Caesar NN. Pius Felix (Invictus) Augustus. NN representing the individuals
personal name, Pius Felix, meaning Pious and Blest,
and Invictus meaning undefeated. The use of princeps and dominus broadly symbolise the dierences in the
empires government, giving rise to the era designations
"Principate" and "Dominate".

Main article: Imperator

2.3 Evolution in Late Antiquity

The title imperator dates back to the Roman Republic,
when a victorious commander could be hailed as impera- In 293, following the Crisis of the Third Century which
tor in the eld by his troops. The Senate could then award had severely damaged Imperial administration, Emperor
or withhold the extraordinary honour of a triumph; the Diocletian enacted sweeping reforms that washed away

TITLES AND POSITIONS

many of the vestiges and faades of republicanism which of the empire is today called the Byzantine Empire as a
had characterized the Augustan order in favor of a more matter of scholarly convention.
frank autocracy. As a result, historians distinguish the
Augustinian period as the principate and the period
from Diocletian to the 7th century reforms of Emperor 3 Titles and positions
Heraclius as the dominate (from the Latin for lord.)
Reaching back to the oldest traditions of job-sharing in
the republic, however, Diocletian established at the top
of this new structure the Tetrarchy (rule of four) in an
attempt to provide for smoother succession and greater
continuity of government. Under the Tetrarchy, Diocletian set in place a system of co-emperors, styled Augustus
and junior emperors, styled Caesar. When a co-emperor
retired (as Diocletian and his co-emperor Maximian did
in 305) or died, a junior Caesar would succeed him and
the co-emperors would appoint new caesars as needed.
The four members of the Imperial college (as historians
call the arrangement) shared military and administrative
challenges by each being assigned specic geographic areas of the empire. From this innovation, often, but not
consistently repeated over the next 187 years, comes the
notion of an east-west partition of the empire that became popular with historians long after the practice had
stopped. The two halves of empire, while often run as
de facto separate entities day-to-day, were always considered and seen, legally and politically, as separate administrative divisions of a single, insoluble imperium by
the Romans of the time.
The nal period of co-emperorship began in 395, when
Emperor Theodosius I's sons Arcadius and Honorius succeeded as co-emperors. Eighty-ve years later, following
Germanic migrations which had reduced the empires effective control across Brittania, Gaul and Hispania and a
series of military coup d'tat which drove Emperor Nepos
out of Italy, the idea of dividing the position of emperor
was formally abolished by Emperor Zeno (480).
The Roman Empire survived in the east until 1453, but
the marginalization of the former heartland of Italy to
the empire would have profound cultural impacts on the
empire and the position of emperor. In 620, the ofcial language was changed from Latin to Greek, and
although the Greek-speaking inhabitants were Romaioi
(), and were still considered Romans by themselves and the populations of Eastern Europe, the Near
East, India, and China, many in Western Europe began to refer to the political entity as the Greek Empire. The evolution of the church in the no-longer imperial city of Rome and the church in the now supreme
Constantinople began to follow divergent paths culminating in the split between the Roman Catholic and Eastern
Orthodox faiths. The position of emperor was increasingly inuenced by Near Eastern concepts of kingship.
Starting with Emperor Heraclius, Roman emperors styled
themselves King of Kings (from the imperial Persian
Shananshah) from 627 and Basileus (from the title
used by Alexander the Great) from 629. The later period

Although these are the most common oces, titles, and

positions, not all Roman emperors used them, nor were
all of them used at the same time in history. The consular
and censorial oces especially were not an integral part
of the Imperial dignity, and were usually held by persons
other than the reigning emperor.
Augustus: (also "" or ""),
Majestic or Venerable"; an honoric cognomen
exclusive to the emperor.
Autokrator: (, Autokratr), (lit. Selfruler); Greek title equivalent to imperator or
commander-in-chief.
Basileus: (), Greek for king, popularly
used in the east to refer to the emperor; a formal title
of the Roman emperor beginning with Heraclius.
Caesar: (also ""), Caesar"; initially the
cognomen of Julius Caesar, it was transformed into
a title; an honoric name later used to identify an
emperor-designate.
Censor: a Republican oce held jointly by two former consuls every ve years for the purpose of conducting the lustrum that determined the role of citizens; the censor could audit all other magistrates and
all state nances.
Consul: the highest magistracy of the Roman Republic with a one-year term and one coequal ofceholder; the consul was the head of state within
Rome. The last emperor to be bestowed the title by
the Senate was Constans II, who was also the last
emperor to visit Rome.
Dominus (Lord or Master): an honoric title
mainly associated with the Dominate
Dominus Noster (Our Lord): an honoric title; the
praenomen of later emperors.
Imperator (Commander or Commander-inChief): a victory title taken on accession to the
purple and after a major military victory
Imperator Destinatus (Destined to be Emperor):
heir apparent, used by Septimius Severus for
Caracalla.

3.1

Powers

Invictus (Unconquered), an honoric title.

3.1 Powers

Nobilissimus:
(N, Nbelissimos), When Augustus established the Princeps, he turned down
(Most Noble), one of the highest imperial titles supreme authority in exchange for a collection of variheld by the emperor.
ous powers and oces, which in itself was a demonstration of his auctoritas (authority). As holding princeps
Pater Patriae (Father of the Fatherland): an hon- senatus, the emperor declared the opening and closure of
oric title.
each Senate session, declared the Senates agenda, imposed rules and regulation for the Senate to follow, and
Perpetuus (Universal): an honoric title of later met with foreign ambassadors in the name of the Senate.
Being pontifex maximus made the emperor the chief ademperors.
ministrator of religious aairs, granting him the power
to conduct all religious ceremonies, consecrate temples,
Pius Felix (Pious and Blessed): an honoric title.
control the Roman calendar (adding or removing days as
needed), appoint the vestal virgins and some amens, lead
Pontifex Maximus (Supreme Ponti or Chief the Collegium Ponticum, and summarize the dogma of
Priest): in the Republican era, the Pontifex Max- the Roman religion.
imus was the head of the College of Pontis, the
While these powers granted the emperor a great deal of
religious body that oversaw the ancestral public relipersonal pride and inuence, they did not include legal
gion of the Romans; Julius Caesar had become Ponauthority. In 23 BC, Augustus gave the emperorship its
tifex Maximus before he was elected consul, and the
legal power. The rst was Tribunicia Potestas, or the powprecedent set by his heir Augustus in consolidating
ers of the tribune of the plebs without actually holding the
supreme authority through this religious oce was
oce (which would have been impossible, since a tribune
in general followed by his successors until the emwas by denition a plebeian, whereas Augustus, although
pire came under Christian rule
born into a plebeian family, had become a patrician when
he was adopted into the gens Julia). This endowed the
Princeps (First Citizen or Leading Citizen): an emperor with inviolability (sacrosanctity) of his person,
honoric title denoting the status of the emperor as and the ability to pardon any civilian for any act, crimirst among equals, associated mainly with the Prin- nal or otherwise. By holding the powers of the tribune,
cipate
the emperor could prosecute anyone who interfered with
the performance of his duties. The emperors tribune Princeps Iuventutis: (Prince of Youth), an hon- ship granted him the right to convene the Senate at his
oric title awarded to a presumptive emperor- will and lay proposals before it, as well as the ability to
veto any act or proposal by any magistrate, including the
designate.
actual tribune of the plebeians. Also, as holder of the
tribunes power, the emperor would convoke the Council
Princeps Senatus: (First Man of the Senate), a Reof the People, lay legislation before it, and served as the
publican oce with a ve-year term.
councils president. But his tribuneship only granted him
power within Rome itself. He would need another power
Sebastos: (), (Venerable); the Greek to veto the act of governors and that of the consuls while
rendition of the imperial title Augustus.
in the provinces.
Sebastokrator: (, Sebastokratr),
(Venerable Ruler); a senior court title from
the compound words sebastos (venerable, the
Greek equivalent of the Latin Augustus) and kratr
(ruler, the same element as is found in autokratr, emperor).
Tribunicia Potestas: (Tribunician Power); the
powers of a tribune of the people, including sacrosanctity and inviolability of his person, and the veto
over any decision by any other magistrate, assembly, or the Senate (the emperor could not be a
"tribune" because a tribune was a plebeian by denition, therefore the emperor had all the powers of
a tribune without actually being one).

To solve this problem, Augustus managed to have the emperor be given the right to hold two types of imperium.
The rst being consular imperium while he was in Rome,
and imperium maius outside of Rome. While inside the
walls of Rome, the reigning consuls and the emperor held
equal authority, each being able to veto each others proposals and acts, with the emperor holding all of the consuls powers. But outside of Rome, the emperor outranked the consuls and could veto them without the same
eects on himself. Imperium Maius also granted the emperor authority over all the provincial governors, making him the ultimate authority in provincial matters and
gave him the supreme command of all of Romes legions.
With Imperium Maius, the emperor was also granted the
power to appoint governors of imperial provinces without
the interference of the Senate. Also, Imperium Maius

4 LINEAGES AND EPOCHS

granted the emperor the right to veto the governors of who came from the army. Between 235 and 285 over a
the provinces and even the reigning consul while in the dozen emperors achieved the purple, but only Valerian
provinces.
and Carus managed to secure their own sons succession
to the throne; both dynasties died out within two generations.

4
4.1

Lineages and epochs

Principate

4.3 Dominate

Main article: Roman Emperor (Principate)

Main article: Roman Emperor (Dominate)

The nature of the imperial oce and the Principate was

established under Julius Caesar's heir and posthumously
adopted son, Caesar Augustus, and his own heirs, the
descendants of his wife Livia from her rst marriage to
a scion of the distinguished Claudian clan. This JulioClaudian dynasty came to an end when the Emperor
Nero a great-great-grandson of Augustus through his
daughter and of Livia through her sonwas deposed in
68.

The accession on 20 November 284, of Diocletian, the

lower-class, Greek-speaking Dalmatian commander of
Caruss and Numerians household cavalry (protectores
domestici), marked major innovations in Romes government and constitutional theory. Diocletian, a traditionalist and religious conservative, attempted to secure ecient, stable government and a peaceful succession with
the establishment of the Tetrarchy. The empire was divided into East and West, each ruled by an Augustus
assisted by a Caesar as emperor-in-waiting. These divisions were further subdivided into new or reformed
provinces, administered by a complex, hierarchic bureaucracy of unprecedented size and scope. Diocletians
own court was based at Nicomedia. His co-Augustus,
Maximian, was based at Mediolanum (modern Milan).
Their courts were peripatetic, and Imperial progressions
through the provinces made much use of the impressive, theatrical adventus, or Imperial arrival ceremony,
which employed an elaborate choreography of etiquette
to emphasise the emperors elevation above other mortals.
Hyperination of imperial honours and titles served to diistinguished the Augusti from their Caesares, and Diocletian, as senior Augustus, from his colleague Maximian.
The senior Augustus in particular was made a separate
and unique being, accessible only through those closest
to him. The overall unity of the Empire still required the
highest investiture of power and status in one man.[12]

Nero was followed by a succession of usurpers throughout

69, commonly called the "Year of the Four Emperors".
The last of these, Vespasian, established his own Flavian
dynasty. Nerva, who replaced the last Flavian emperor,
Vespasians son Domitian, in 96, was elderly and childless, and chose therefore to adopt an heir, Trajan, from
outside his family. When Trajan acceded to the purple
he chose to follow his predecessors example, adopting
Hadrian as his own heir, and the practice then became
the customary manner of imperial succession for the next
century, producing the "Five Good Emperors" and the
Empires period of greatest stability.

The last of the Good Emperors, Marcus Aurelius, chose

his natural son Commodus as his successor rather than
adopting an heir. Commoduss misrule led to his murder
on 31 December 192, following which a brief period of
instability quickly gave way to Septimius Severus, who
established the Severan dynasty which, except for an inThe Tetrarchy ultimately degenerated into civil war,
terruption in 217-218, held the purple until 235.
but the eventual victor, Constantine the Great, restored
Diocletians division of Empire into East and West.
He kept the East for himself and founded his city of
4.2 Crisis of the Third Century
Constantinople as its new capital. Constantines own dynasty was also soon swallowed up in civil war and court
Main article: Roman Emperor (Crisis of the Third
intrigue until it was replaced, briey, by Julian the AposCentury)
tate's general Jovian and then, more permanently, by
Valentinian I and the dynasty he founded in 364. Though
The accession of Maximinus Thrax marks both the close a soldier from a low middle-class background, Valenand the opening of an era. It was one of the last at- tinian was made emperor by a conclave of senior generals
tempts by the increasingly impotent Roman Senate to and civil ocials.
inuence the succession. Yet it was the second time
that a man had achieved the purple while owing his advancement purely to his military career; both Vespasian
and Septimius Severus had come from noble or middle- 4.4 Late empire
class families, while Thrax was born a commoner. He
never visited the city of Rome during his reign, which Main article: Roman Emperor (Late Empire)
marks the beginning of a series of "barracks emperors"

5.2

Last Roman emperor

Theodosius I acceded to the purple in the East in 379

and in the West in 394. He outlawed paganism and made
Christianity the Empires ocial religion. He was the last
emperor to rule over a united Roman Empire; the distribution of the East to his son Arcadius and the West to his
son Honorius after his death in 395 represented a permanent division.
In the West, the oce of emperor soon degenerated
into being little more than a puppet of a succession of
Germanic tribal kings, until nally the Heruli Odoacer
simply overthrew the child-emperor Romulus Augustulus
in 476, shipped the imperial regalia to the Emperor Zeno
in Constantinople and became King of Italy. Though during his own lifetime Odoacer maintained the legal ction
that he was actually ruling Italy as the viceroy of Zeno,
historians mark 476 as the traditional date of the fall
of the Roman Empire in the West. Large parts of Italy
(Sicily, the south part of the peninsula, Ravenna, Venice
etc.), however, remained under actual imperial rule from
Constantinople for centuries, with imperial control slipping or becoming nominal only as late as the 11th century. In the East, the Empire continued until the fall of
Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Although
known as the Byzantine Empire by contemporary historians, the Empire was simply known as the Roman Empire
to its citizens and neighboring countries.

Post-classical assertions to the title

Imaginary portrait of Constantine XI, the last Roman emperor

tioned title Basileus kai autokratr Rhomain (Emperor

and Autocrat of the Romans). These emperors ceased
5.1 Survival of the Roman Empire in the to use Latin as the language of state after Heraclius. Historians have customarily treated the state of these later
East
Eastern emperors under the name "Byzantine Empire".
It is important to note, however, that the adjective ByzanThe line of Roman emperors in the Eastern Roman
tine, although historically used by Eastern Roman authors
Empire continued unbroken at Constantinople until the
in a metaphorical sense, was never an ocial term.
capture of Constantinople in 1204 by the Fourth Crusade. In the wake of this action, four lines of Emperors emerged, each claiming to be the legal successor: the
Empire of Thessalonica, evolving from the Despotate of 5.2 Last Roman emperor
Epirus, which was reduced to impotence when its founder
Theodore Komnenos Doukas was defeated, captured and Main article: Constantine XI
blinded by the Bulgarian Emperor Ivan Asen III;[13] the
Latin Empire, which came to an end when the Empire of Constantine XI Palaiologos was the last reigning Roman
Nicaea recovered Constantinople in 1261; the Empire of emperor. A member of the Palaiologos dynasty, he ruled
Trebizond, whose importance declined over the 13th cen- the remnant of the Eastern Roman Empire from 1449 untury, and whose claims were simply ignored;[14] and the til his death in 1453 defending its capital Constantinople.
Empire of Nicaea, whose claims based on kinship with
[15]
the previous emperors, control of the Patriarch of Con- He was born in Mystra as the eighth of ten children of
stantinople, and possession of Constantinople through Manuel II Palaiologos and Helena Draga, the daughter
military prowess, prevailed. The successors of the em- of the Serbian prince Constantine Draga of Kumanovo.
perors of Nicaea continued until the fall of Constantino- He spent most of his childhood in Constantinople under
ple in 1453 under Constantine XI Palaiologos. These em- the supervision of his parents. During the absence of
perors eventually normalized the imperial dignity into the his older brother in Italy, Constantine was regent in Conmodern conception of an emperor, incorporated it into stantinople from 1437-1440.
the constitutions of the state, and adopted the aforemen- Before the beginning of the siege, Mehmed II made an

POST-CLASSICAL ASSERTIONS TO THE TITLE

oer to Constantine XI. In exchange for the surrender of

Constantinople, the emperors life would be spared and
he would continue to rule in Mystra. Constantine refused
this oer. Instead he led the defense of the city and took
an active part in the ghting along the land walls. At
the same time, he used his diplomatic skills to maintain
the necessary unity between the Genovese, Venetian, and
Byzantine troops. As the city fell on May 29, 1453, Constantine is said to have remarked: The city is fallen but I
am alive. Realizing that the end had come, he reportedly
discarded his purple cloak and led his remaining soldiers
into a nal charge, in which he was killed. With his death,
Roman imperial succession came to an end, almost 1500
years after Augustus.
After the fall of Constantinople, Thomas Palaiologos,
brother of Constantine XI, was elected emperor and tried
to organize the remaining forces. His rule came to an end
after the fall of the last major Byzantine city, Corinth.
He then moved in Italy and continued to be recognized
as Eastern emperor by the Christian powers.
His son Andreas Palaiologos continued claims on the
Byzantine throne until he sold the title to Ferdinand of
Aragon and Isabella of Castile, the grandparents of Holy
Roman Emperor Charles V.

5.3

New Western lineage

The concept of the Roman Empire was renewed in the

West with the coronation of the king of the Franks,
Charlemagne, as Roman emperor by the Pope on
Christmas Day, 800. This coronation had its roots in
the decline of inuence of the Pope in the aairs of the
Byzantine Empire at the same time the Byzantine Empire declined in inuence over politics in the West. The
Pope saw no advantage to be derived from working with
the Byzantine Empire, but as George Ostrogorsky points
out, an alliance with the famous conqueror of the Lombards, on the other hand ... promised much.[16]
Charles V was the last man to be crowned Roman Emperor and
The immediate response of the Eastern Roman Emperor to celebrate a triumph in Rome
was not welcoming. At that time it was axiomatic that
there could be only one Empire as there could be only
one church, writes Ostrogorsky. The coronation of of Irene, and his son Pepin brought Venice under WestCharles the Great violated all traditional ideas and struck ern hegemony, despite a successful counter-attack by the
a hard blow at Byzantine interests, for hitherto Byzan- Byzantine eet. Unable to counter this encroachment
tium, the new Rome, had unquestionably been regarded on Byzantine territory, Nikephoros successor Michael
as the sole Empire which had taken over the inheritance I Rangabe capitulated; in return for the restoration of
of the old Roman imperium. Conscious of its imperial the captured territories, Michael sent Byzantine delerights, Byzantium could only consider the elevation of gates to Aachen in 812 who recognized Charlemagne as
Basileus.[19]
Charles the Great to be an act of usurpation.[17]
Nikephoros I chose to ignore Charlemagnes claim to the
imperial title, clearly recognizing the implications of this
act. According to Ostrogorsky, he even went so far
as to refuse the Patriarch Nicephorus permission to dispatch the customary synodica to the Pope.[18] Meanwhile, Charlemagnes power steadily increased: he subdued Istria and several Dalmatian cities during the reign

This line of Roman emperors was actually generally

Germanic rather than Roman, but maintained their
Roman-ness as a matter of principle. These emperors used a variety of titles (most frequently "Imperator Augustus") before nally settling on Imperator Romanus Electus (Elected Roman Emperor). Historians
customarily assign them the title Holy Roman Emperor,

9
which has a basis in actual historical usage, and treat their
"Holy Roman Empire" as a separate institution. To Latin
Catholics of the time, the Pope was the temporal authority as well as spiritual authority, and as Bishop of Rome
he was recognized as having the power to anoint or crown
a new Roman emperor. The last man to be crowned by
the pope (although in Bologna, not Rome) was Charles
V. All his successors bore only a title of Elected Roman
Emperor.
This line of Emperors lasted until 1806 when Francis
II dissolved the Empire during the Napoleonic Wars.
Despite the existence of later potentates styling themselves emperor, such as the Napoleons, the Habsburg
Emperors of Austria, and the Hohenzollern heads of the
German Reich, this marked the end of the Western Empire. Although there is a living heir to the Habsburg dynasty, as well as a Pope and pretenders to the positions
of the electors, and although all the medieval coronation
regalia are still preserved in Austria, the legal abolition of
all aristocratic prerogatives of the former electors and the
imposition of republican constitutions in Germany and
Austria render quite remote any potential for a revival of
the Holy Roman Empire.
For rulers of Italy after Romulus Augustulus
and Julius Nepos, see list of barbarian kings.
For the Roman emperors who ruled in the East
after The Fall in the West, see List of Byzantine
emperors.
For emperors of the Holy Roman Empire in the
West, see Holy Roman Emperor.

List of Roman emperors

List of Roman usurpers
List of condemned Roman emperors

7 Notes
[1] Galinsky, Karl (2005). The Cambridge companion to the
Age of Augustus. pp. 1314. ISBN 978-0-521-80796-8.
Retrieved 2011-08-03.
[2] Alston, Richard (1998). Aspects of Roman history, AD
14-117. p. 39. ISBN 978-0-415-13237-4. Retrieved
2011-08-03.
[3] Williams, Stephen (1997). Diocletian and the Roman recovery. p. 147. ISBN 978-0-415-91827-5. Retrieved
2011-08-03.
[4] Heather, Peter (2005). The Fall of the Roman Empire. p.
28. ISBN 978-0-330-49136-5. Retrieved 2011-08-03.
[5] Kazhdan, Alexander, ed. (1991), Oxford Dictionary of
Byzantium, Oxford University Press, p. 264, ISBN 9780-19-504652-6
[6] lber Ortayl, Byk Constantin ve stanbul, Milliyet, 28
May 2011.
[7] Barnes, Timothy (29 April 2009). The rst Emperor: the
view of late antiquity. In Grin, Miriam. A Companion
to Julius Caesar. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 278279. ISBN
978-1-4443-0845-7.
[8] Barnes, Timothy (29 April 2009). The rst Emperor: the
view of late antiquity. In Grin, Miriam. A Companion
to Julius Caesar. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 279282. ISBN
978-1-4443-0845-7.
[9] The Oxford Classical Dictionary, entry 'Imperator', Third
Edition, Oxford University Press., 1996.

See also
Byzantine Emperor
Imperator
Imperial cult
Interregnum
Justitium
King of Rome
Roman dictator

[10] Cassius Dio, 43.44.2.

[11] Goldsworth (2009), 443
[12] Rees, R., Diocletian and the Tetrarchy, Edinburgh University Press, 2004. pp 46 - 56, 60. ISBN 978-0-7486-16619
[13] George Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, translated by Joan Hussey (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1957), p. 387
[14] On the imperial claims of the Grand Komnenos and international response to them, see N. Oikonomides, The
Chancery of the Grand Komnenoi; Imperial Tradition and
Political Reality, Archeion Pontou, 35 (1979), pp. 299332

Roman Emperors family tree; also Julio-Claudian

[15] Constantine XI Palaeologus (1449-1453) Fall of Confamily tree and Severan dynasty family tree
stantinople Ealo h Polis

Roman usurper
Lists:

[16] Ostrogorsky, Byzantine State, p. 163

[17] Ostrogorsky, Byzantine State, pp. 164f
[18] Ostrogorsky, Byzantine State, p. 175

List of Imperial Victory Titles

[19] Ostrogorsky, Byzantine State, p. 176

10

Further reading
Scarre, Chris. Chronicle of the Roman Emperors:
The Reign-by-Reign Record of the Rulers of Imperial Rome. London: Thames & Hudson, October 1,
1995. ISBN 0-500-05077-5. (hardcover)

External links
De Imperatoribus Romanis
Rulers of Rome
Decadence, Rome and Romania, and the Emperors
Who Weren't, by Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D.
UNRV.com
The Roman Law Library
List of Greatest Roman Emperors

EXTERNAL LINKS

11

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