Note 536 — Chapter II · THE ROMAN EMPIRE UNDER ANASTASIUS: THE INHERITANCE OF JUSTINIAN

The favourite title of Augustus was Princeps or “First citizen,” but the more martial emperors, such as Galba and Trajan, preferred the military Imperator, which after their time became distinctive of the monarch. By the end of the third century, under the administration of Aurelian and Diocletian, the emperor became an undisguised despot, and henceforward was regarded as the Dominus, a term which originally expressed the relation between a master and his slaves; see Jn. Lydus, De Magistr., i, 5; the series of coins in Cohen’s Numismatics of the Empire, etc.