Imperator

“ Under the emperors they obtained the greatest boons possible, when the condition of society was hollow and rotten to the core. The people were governed, sometimes wisely, sometimes recklessly, but there were order and law for three hundred years. It little mattered to the vast population of the empire who was supreme master, provided they were not oppressed. The proud Imperator, the title and praenomen of all the Roman monarchs, and which had been invented for Octavian, remained the fountain of law, the arbiter of all interests, the undisputed ruler of the world. ”

“ The crucial point in the creation of an emperor is his salutation by his army as imperator. Such a salutation did not mean that the general who accepted it was Princeps; it meant only that he was a candidate for the Principate. The act itself was one of revolution; its legality depended upon its success. Did the legions in other provinces accept the candidature, the Senate immediately fulfilled its formal task; did rival aspirants meet in battle, it was always ready to welcome the survivor. ”

“ Originally the title of king was superior to that of emperor, and it was to avoid the assumption of the superior title of rex that the chief magistrates of Rome adopted the names of Caesar, imperator and princeps to signalize their authority. But with the development of the Roman imperial idea the title emperor came to mean more than had been involved in that of rex; very early in the history of the Empire there were subject kings; while with the Hellenizing of the East Roman Empire its rulers assumed the style of βασιλεύς, no longer to be translated “king” but “emperor.” ”

“ But every educated Roman knew that the Roman monarchy had been nothing else than the unlimited imperium, and many may have believed that dictator or “master of the people” was the most significant of the titles of the king. It was, therefore, a regnum under which Rome was living, [1568] and there was no concealment of its military character, for the title imperator was now borne by the regent within the walls. [1569] This designation was a mere symbol of military command and the fullest jurisdiction ”

“ Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms, Th' anointed sovereign of sighs and groans, Liege of all loiterers and malcontents, Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces, Sole imperator, and great general Of trotting paritors. ”

“ Because all the patriarchs and all men of every rank, except you alone, have, of their own accord, addressed us as such whenever they have written to us. And besides, our uncles [Charles the Bald and Ludwig the German] , glorious kings, willingly call us emperor. And they do so, not out of regard for our age, for they are older than we, but because of the anointing and consecration by which, with God’s will, we were advanced to this high office through the laying on of the hands of the pope, and because, at God’s command, we have the government of the Roman empire.... ”

“ My beloved, the emperor represents any one whom the pride and vanity of life wholly engross. The knight to whom Jovinian first applied, is Reason; which ever disclaims the pomps and fooleries of life. The duke is conscience; the savage dog, is the flesh, which alarms the falcon, that is, divine Grace. The wife is the human soul; the clothes in which the emperor was at last arrayed, are the virtues that befit the true sovereign, that is, the good Christian. ”

“ Let not a Roman prince esteem the intimation of truth in its proper sense an injury. Two, then, O emperor, there are by whom this world is ruled in chief—the sacred authority of pontiffs and the royal power. Of these that of priests weighs the heavier, insomuch as they will have in the divine judgment to render an account for kings themselves. For you know, most gracious son, that pre-eminent as you are in dignity over the human race, you nevertheless bow the neck submissively to those who preside over things divine. ”

“ Go down to the flounder; king I am, now I must be emperor.’
‘Alas! wife,’ said the fisherman, ‘why do you want to be emperor?’
‘Husband,’ said she, ‘go to the flounder; I will be emperor.’
‘Ah, wife,’ he said, ‘he cannot make you emperor; I don’t like to ask him that. There is only one emperor in the kingdom. Indeed and indeed he cannot make you emperor.’
‘What!’ said his wife. ‘I am king, and you are my husband. Will you go at once? Go! If he can make king he can make emperor, and emperor I must and will be. ”

“ The emperor assented—"but," said he, "let us study in the first place to be reconciled to God." They were then both confessed, and their contrition was perfect as sincere. Afterwards sending for the knight, they revealed, amid a flood of tears, their crime. "My lord," he replied, "that ye may be reconciled to God, hear what I counsel. As well for your own sins, as for the sins of your father, hasten to the Holy Land; and before you embark, call together the noblemen of the kingdom, and explain to them your intent. And because your sister is your only heir, charge them to be obedient to her. ”

“ How much greater right have we to the imperial title, therefore, than the many who have been made emperor without any religious ceremony or holy rite being performed by a pope, being elected only by the senate and people of Rome, who had no regard for such holy rites? And some have been made emperor by even less authority, being proclaimed by the army, and others by women, and others in still other ways. ”

“ Verily he hath been rewarded; he hath suffered much indignity and wrong, and, of God’s will, ye knew him not; he hath repented him of his grievous sin, and the scourge is now removed; he has made such satisfaction as man can make. Hear ye him, know him, obey him.”
27As the feigned emperor thus addressed the astonished nobles, his features seemed illumined with a fair and spiritual light, his imperial robes fell from off him, and he stood confessed before the assembly an angel of God, clothed in white raiment. ”

“ The emperor had swallowed up the empire, and there was no authority or influence beside. This is the main feature of the first or Imperial Century, that, wherever we look, we see but one,—one gorged and bloated brutalized man, sitting on the throne of earthly power, and all the rest of mankind at his feet. ”

“ The vow I made Amid the hellish torments of that moment I hold a sacred debt, and I will pay it. Thou art my lord, my emperor's delegate, Yet would the emperor not have stretched his power So far as thou. He sent thee to these Cantons To deal forth law, stern law, for he is angered; But not to wanton with unbridled will In every cruelty, with fiendlike joy: There is a God to punish and avenge. Come forth, thou bringer once of bitter pangs, My precious jewel now, my chiefest treasure; A mark I'll set thee, which the cry of grief Could never penetrate, but thou shalt pierce it. ”

“ Under the Republic every election had appeared to the Romans who participated in it to be a rite for ascertaining what man would be most pleasing to the gods to fill the position in question. Under the Empire the selection of a new Emperor, whether a confirmation by the senate of the previous Emperor’s accredited heir, or an acclamation by the army of the soldiers’ favorite, appeared to the Romans as the determination of the gods’ preference for a particular individual as their chief partner. ”

“ I have served none but the emperor." "Why," said the other, "thou knowest that I am he. Yet, though you disregard my words, go, I implore you, to the empress; communicate what I will tell thee, and by these signs, bid her send the imperial robes, of which some rogue has deprived me. The signs I tell thee of are known to none but to ourselves." "In verity," said the porter, "thou art specially mad; at this very moment my lord sits at table with the empress herself. ”

“ The ignorant and servile vulgar must be blinded to attain to their proper good; they would not believe a maxim—they revere an oracle. The Emperor of Rome sways the vast and various tribes of earth, and harmonizes the conflicting and disunited elements; thence come peace, order, law, the blessings of life. Think you it is the man, the emperor, that thus sways?—no, it is the pomp, the awe, the majesty that surround him—these are his impostures, his delusions; our oracles and our divinations, our rites and our ceremonies, are the means of our sovereignty and the engines of our power. ”

“ Now that the Emperor is dead, you are the right heir to the Empire, and I know likewise, that you are well beloved by all the people, and if any one disliked you it was the Emperor, for his envy of your good qualities. So great a thing as this you ought to attend to. You have here the greater part of the best Knights of Rome, and I have in the Firm Island, Brondajel of the Rock, and the Duke of Ancona, and the Archbishop of Talancia, with sundry others who were taken upon the sea. ”

“ The emperor has a hundred million eyes,
That never wink, because they have no lids,
And never sleep, because they never tire,
And these run everywhere and all things see;
The emperor's arms are many, long and strong,
East, west, north, south, they range throughout the world.
[92] Oh, he can reach thee wheresoever hiding,
And pluck thee thence and fetch thee safely home;
The world is all his prison, the emperor's.'
'Thou thinkest that?' said I. 'No doubt,' said he. ”

“ The boy grew up, handsome in person and extremely eloquent; so that he became a general favourite. Now the emperor remarking the extraordinary quickness of the youth, desired his foster-father to send him to court; where he resided a length of time. But the great estimation in which he was held by all ranks of people, caused the emperor to repent what he had done; and to fear lest he should aspire to the throne, or probably be the same, whom, as a child, he had commanded his squires to destroy. ”

“ He found the emperor the virtual patron of the Roman See; he wrenched that power from his hands. He found the secular clergy the allies and dependents of the secular power; he converted them into inalienable auxiliaries of his own. He found the patronage of the Church the desecrated spoil and merchandise of princes; he reduced it to his own dominion. He is celebrated as the reformer of the impure and profane abuses of his age; he is more justly entitled to the praise of having left the impress of his gigantic character on all the ages which have succeeded him. ”

“ But when the emperor united in his own person the various functions, civil and military, of the republic—when he was consul, prince of the senate, censor, proconsul-general, commander of the army, and tribune of the people—when he could legally as well as logically say, L'état, c'est moi—the law of majestas applied to his person alone, since he was the only representative of the nobles, the knights, the people, the legions, and the subjects of Rome. ”

“ I desire that one point should be especially noted by them that read this book, viz. that I do not like in any passage to speak of two emperors or Cæsars in the story at the same time, as we read of in the Latin; but I everywhere speak of one emperor as being concerned in the persecution of the martyrs; just as our own nation is subject to one king, and is accustomed to speak of one king, and not of two. ”

“ To the middle classes the emperor was a semi-sacred magistrate, charged with maintaining by law and example the purity of the family, fidelity in marital relations, and simplicity of customs. Now, to their amazement, they saw in the person of the empress all the dissipations, corruptions, and perversions of the woman who wished to live only for her pleasure, to enjoy her beauty, and to have others enjoy it, enthroned, to the scandal of all honest minds, in the palace of the emperor. ”

“ Enter the Emperor and Empress, and her two Sons [Lords and Others] . The Emperor brings the arrows in his hand that Titus shot at him.
Sat. Why, lords, what wrongs are these! Was ever seen
An emperor in Rome thus overborne,
Troubled, confronted thus; and, for the extent
Of egal justice, us'd in such contempt? 4
My lords, you know, [as do] the mightful gods,—
However these disturbers of our peace
Buzz in the people's ears,—there nought hath pass'd,
But even with law, against the wilful sons 8
Of old Andronicus. ”

“ Therefore, when we look at the images of the gods, let us not indeed think they are stones or wood, but neither let us think they are the gods themselves; and indeed we do not say that the statues of the emperors are mere wood and stone and bronze, but still less do we say they are the emperors themselves. He therefore who loves the emperor delights to see the emperor's statue, and he who loves his son delights to see his son's statue, and he who loves his father delights to see his father's statue. ”

“ The empire is shaken to its centre.
Valentinian, a soldier of fortune, and an able general, now wears the imperial purple. Like Diocletian, he finds himself unable to bear the burdens of his throne. He elects an associate, divides the empire, and gives to Valens the eastern provinces. All idea of reigning in peace, and giving the reins to pleasure, has vanished from the imperial mind. The office of emperor demands the severest virtues and the sternest qualities and the most incessant labors. "Uneasy sits the head that wears a crown," can now be said of all the later emperors. ”

“ The fiercest indignation burst out, which rose to fever heat when Cardinal Roland answered the objectors by inquiring, ‘From whom then does the Emperor hold the Empire if not from the Pope?’ In answer to the Pope’s implied claim of feudal supremacy, the Emperor circulated a declaration of his rights throughout the Empire. ‘The Empire is held by us,’ he declared, ‘through the election of the princes from God alone, who gave the world to be ruled by the two necessary swords, and taught through St. Peter that men should fear God and honour the king. ”

“ It was there that the great emperor, after having conquered and reigned in glory through the prime of life, after having satisfied the vengeful zeal of his counsellors against the Christian sects, which now, in spite of all his persecutions, peopled the whole land, after having made his name awful by deeds of blood not less than by deeds of magnificence, had been accustomed to sit, self-stripped of his power, and to gaze out, after having been an emperor, upon nearly the same scene which his eyes beheld before he was anything but a slave. ”