(When I was an unskilled labourer at Lancaster Royal Infirmary, landscaping a car park, there was new construction work going on at the RLI at the same time and one of the cleaning staff told me that the then current building work was "phrase one." I relayed this to Sheila who responded, "I see. How many phrases will there be?" A cleaner does not need to know her phrases from her phases but such linguistic errors are unacceptable in other lines of work. I attended a College where it was noticed that the headed notepaper described the Principal as the "Principle." When this mistake had been spotted, that notepaper had to be used only as scrap paper for handwritten notes, telephone messages etc. This parenthetical paragraph has become a miniature essay.)
Rome was a monarchy, then a republic, then an empire. "Princeps" meant "first" and, during the Republic, the "princeps senatus" was the leading member of the Senate. In the Empire, "princeps" became an Imperial title, I think the main such title although I am still finding this confusing.
In the Republic, because of foreign wars and civil strife, a successful general, Julius Caesar, accumulated personal political power and was assassinated to prevent him from acquiring even more such power. However, this resulted in what we know as the Empire being founded by his heir and successor, Gaius Octavius.
In 38 BC, Octavius replaced "Gaius" with "Imperator," which meant "Commander" and has come to mean "Emperor." The King of England was "Rex Imperator." In 27 BC, the Senate granted him the name, "Augustus," and he also adopted the unofficial title, "princeps." The Empire is deemed to have begun then, not earlier when Octavius became "Imperator."
The Empire had two phases, Principate and Dominate. This statement may or may not be an accurate analysis. However, (i) it is one analysis that has been made and (ii) it is relevant to Poul Anderson's account of the Terran Empire to which we will turn next.
The Principate was the appearance of continued republican government whereas the Dominate, beginning with Diocletian, was more autocratic.
The next question is: to what extent does the Terran Empire parallel the Roman Empire?
2 comments:
Poul was originally taken with the theory that empires proceeded through set "stages". Later he became disinchanted with that. I agree with his later position -- history is not predictable.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: English can be confusing because many words similar (or the same) in spelling can have different meanings. One example I thought of being "complementary/complimentary." I've seen the former being used to mean the latter!
Mr. Stirling: I used to think, as did Anderson, that Hord's theories offered some useful insights. But you convinced me there can be no predictive theory or "science" of history.
Even so, I still think terms like "Principate" and "Dominate" can reasonably be used for different eras in the history of the Roman Empire.
Ad astra! Sean
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