Correct Latin words for Roman Empire?

[guidoLaMoto]

--did some minor research:

This site gives numerous examples from the lit (without giving reference info) for dictionary entries-  https://www.online-latin-dictionary.com/latin-english-dictionary.php?parola=Imperium. As you can see, the vast majority for the word as I described above. A few refer to "sub imperio populi Romani"- under the command or domination of the roman people. The term Imperium Romanorum is listed, but according to Wiki- it's a term used in the Charlemagne era referring to plans to restore the Roman Empire-- Renovatio imperii Romanorum.

Don't forget that we're walking about a millennium of language (not to mention, political) evolution.....I wonder if troubadors of the Dark Ages went thru a phase where "mala" meant "bona?"....Dona mihi  alta cinque!  ...Aliquis?

 

[caldrail]

On 1/27/2015 at 6:50 PM, Auris Arrectibus said:

Well, I'm not sure about that.

In "roman times" the concept of a land or empire was not the same as nowadays.

 

I 've red somewhere that Cicero used "Senatus Populusque Romanus" (SPQR). And as inscriptions at arches in the city of Rome.

I don't think the Romans ment with SPQR the whole territory they control.

 

Maybe "Orbis terrarum" (also Cicero) is better in this context, but I have to study on that.

 

Auris Arrectibus 

Modern literature tends to stress a difference between Republic and Empire, but really that's merely a rationale to justify the use of the word 'emperor'. When you read the sources, certain things become obvious - there was no new state. The 'Roman Empire' was nothing more than a continuation of the Roman Republic with evolving leadership. The 'Fall of the Republic' never happened - there's no such event described in the sources. There's no word in Latin for 'emperor' anyway. How could Roman leaders be something for hundreds of years with no word to describe it? It's ridiculous. The words we use in translation now meant something different back in the day, and worst of all, so many people, even academics, insist on trying to define the Roman Empire in modern terms and themes.

Rome was a city state that dominated their empire, a patchwork of regions and territories with varying levels of status and relationship to the parent state, from occupied regions administered by the legions to provinces with full citizenship rights. The Italian tribal states, although brought into a formal relationship by Augustus, were never legally provinces at all.

When people in the empire said they were Roman, it was their relationship to the eternal city they referred to. That was what Rome wanted. Loyalty and taxes.

Although the empire became a full autocracy when Diocletian declared his word was law and ushered in the Dominate, none of his successors ever relinquished republican credibility completely in the West. The East went further though. They started crowning monarchs with Leo I in 457, and within a couple of hundred years later had introduced imperial titles that did mean 'emperor'.

But  what change did Augustus bring? The Roman Empire? It's nonsense. Rome began its empire two hundred years before Augustus with territory in Western Sicily. Augustus did not sweep the Republic away, he reformed it, and became its leading statesman. Medieval fallacies say something different and are responsible for our romantic ideas about the imperial Romans, but the truth is that SPQR remained the official name of the state until 476. 

We're talking about a couple of thousand years of history, so yes, there were political changes along the way, and as both Virgil and Polybius predicted, the Roman state went the way of all empires and declined.