Dominate
The Dominate, also known as the late Roman Empire, is the despotic form of imperial government of the late Roman Empire. It followed the earlier period known as the Principate. Until the empire was reunited in 313, this phase is more often called the Tetrarchy.[1][2]
For the album by Adagio, see Dominate (album).It may begin with the commencement of the reign of Diocletian in AD 284, following the Third Century Crisis of AD 235–284, and end in the west with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476, while in the Eastern Roman Empire its end is disputed, with the majority of opinions placing it around the transition between the Justinian and Heraclian dynasties, between the years 565[3] and 641.[4] In form, the Dominate is considered to have been more authoritarian, less collegial and more bureaucratic than the Principate from which it emerged.
Etymology[edit]
The modern term dominate is derived from the Latin dominus, which translates into English as lord or master. Dominus, traditionally used by Roman slaves to address their masters, was sporadically used in addressing emperors throughout the Principate, usually in the form of excessive flattery (or political invective) when referring to the emperor.[5] Augustus actively discouraged the practice, and Tiberius in particular is said to have reviled it as sycophancy.[6] Domitian encouraged its use,[7] but none of the emperors used the term in any semi-official capacity until the reign of Aurelian in AD 274, where coins were issued bearing the inscription deus et dominus natus.[8] It was only under Diocletian that the term dominus was adopted as part of the emperor's official titulature, forming part of Diocletian's radical reforms.[1]
Characteristics[edit]
Multiple emperors[edit]
Under the Principate, the position of emperor saw the concentration of various civil and military offices within a single magistracy.[16] Augustus and his successors usually took great care to disguise the autocratic nature of the office by hiding behind the institutions of the Roman Republic and the fiction that the emperor was simply the princeps or first citizen, whose authority was granted by the Senate. This role was almost always filled by a single individual, and the date that the Potestas tribunicia was conferred onto that person was the point when imperial authority could be exercised.[17] Over the course of the Principate, it became common for the emperor (or Augustus) to nominate an heir (referred to as the Caesar), but the caesar did not have access to the powers of the emperor, nor was he delegated any official authority.[18]
It was during the Crisis of the Third Century that the traditional imperial approach of a single imperial magistrate based at Rome became unable to cope with multiple and simultaneous invasions and usurpations that required the emperor to be everywhere at once. Further, it was their absence which caused usurpations to occur in response to a local or provincial crisis that traditionally would have been dealt with by the emperor.[19]
Under the Dominate, the burden of the imperial position was increasingly shared between colleagues, referred to as the Consortium imperii. It was Diocletian who introduced this form of government, under a system called the Tetrarchy, which originally consisted of two co-emperors (augusti) and two respectively subordinate junior emperors (caesars), each of whom shared in the imperial power. This original power sharing model lasted from AD 289 through to AD 324, being undone during the Civil wars of the Tetrarchy. With Constantine I's death in AD 337, the empire was again shared between multiple augusti, lasting until AD 350. The model became a permanent feature of the empire in AD 364 with the accession of Valentinian I, who shared the imperial office with his brother Valens. Barring the 3-year period of solitary rule by Theodosius I from AD 392–395, this approach would last until the overthrow of the last western emperor in AD 476.
While each augustus was autonomous within each portion of the empire they managed, all laws that were introduced by any emperor were valid across the entirety of the empire.
Devaluation of the Consulate[edit]
During the Roman Republic, the office of Consul was the highest elected magistracy in the Roman state, with two consuls elected annually. With the arrival of the Principate, although all real power was invested in the emperor, the consuls were still in theory the head of state, and the calendar year was identified by the two ordinary consuls who began in office at the start of the year.[20] Throughout the Principate, the imperial consulate was an important position, albeit as the method through which the Roman aristocracy could progress through to the higher levels of imperial administration – only former consuls could become consular legates, the proconsuls of Africa and Asia, or the urban prefect of Rome.[21]
Consequently, the high regard placed upon the ordinary consulate remained intact, as it was one of the few offices that one could share with the emperor, and during this period it was filled mostly by patricians or by individuals who had consular ancestors. It was a post that would be occupied by a man halfway through his career, in his early thirties for a patrician, or in his early forties for most others.[22] If they were especially skilled or valued, they may even have achieved a second (or rarely, a third) consulate. Prior to achieving the consulate, these individuals already had a significant career behind them, and would expect to continue serving the state, filling in the post upon which the state functioned.[23]
Under the Dominate, the loss of many pre-consular functions and the encroachment of the equites into the traditional senatorial administrative and military functions meant that senatorial careers virtually vanished prior to their appointment as consuls.[23] This had the effect of seeing a suffect consulship granted at an earlier age, to the point that by the 4th century, it was being held by men in their early twenties, and possibly younger.[23] As time progressed, second consulates, usually ordinary, became far more common than had been the case during the first two centuries, while the first consulship was usually a suffect consulate. Also, the consulate during this period was no longer just the province of senators – the automatic awarding of a suffect consulship to the equestrian praetorian prefects (who were given the ornamenta consularia upon achieving their office) allowed them to style themselves cos. II when they were later granted an ordinary consulship by the emperor.[23] All this had the effect of further devaluing the office of consul, to the point that by time of the Dominate, holding an ordinary consulate was occasionally left out of the cursus inscriptions, while suffect consulships were hardly ever recorded.[23]