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The Dominate was the 'despotic
Despotism

Despotism is a form of government by a single authority, either an autocracy or oligarchy, which rules with absolute political power. In its classical form, a despotism is a state where a single individual wields all the power and authority embodying the state, and everyone else is a subsidiary person....
' latter phase of government in the ancient Roman Empire
Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
 from the conclusion of the Third Century Crisis
Crisis of the Third Century

Crisis of the Third Century was the crumbling and near collapse of the Roman Empire between 235 and 284 caused by invasion, civil war, Plague of Cyprian, and economic collapse....
 of 235–284 until the formal date of the collapse of the Western Empire
Western Roman Empire

The Western Roman Empire refers to the western half of the Roman Empire, from its division by Diocletian in 285; the other half of the Roman Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire, today widely known as the Byzantine Empire....
 in AD 476. It followed the period known as the Principate
Principate

The Principate is the first period of the Roman Empire, extending from the beginning of the reign of Caesar Augustus to the Crisis of the Third Century, after which it was replaced with the Dominate....
. In the Eastern half of the Empire, and especially from the time of Justinian I
Justinian I

Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus , AD 482 or 483 ? 13 or 14 November 565, was the second member of the Justinian Dynasty and List of Roman Emperors from 527 until his death....
, the system of the Dominate evolved into Byzantine
Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
 absolutism.

The word is derived from the Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 dominus, meaning lord or master, as an owner versus his slave — this had been used sycophantically to address emperors from the Julio-Claudian (first) dynasty on, but not used by them as a style — Tiberius
Tiberius

Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus, born Tiberius Claudius Nero , was the second Roman Emperor, from the death of Augustus in AD 14 until his own death in 37....
 in particular is said to have reviled it openly.






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The Dominate was the 'despotic
Despotism

Despotism is a form of government by a single authority, either an autocracy or oligarchy, which rules with absolute political power. In its classical form, a despotism is a state where a single individual wields all the power and authority embodying the state, and everyone else is a subsidiary person....
' latter phase of government in the ancient Roman Empire
Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
 from the conclusion of the Third Century Crisis
Crisis of the Third Century

Crisis of the Third Century was the crumbling and near collapse of the Roman Empire between 235 and 284 caused by invasion, civil war, Plague of Cyprian, and economic collapse....
 of 235–284 until the formal date of the collapse of the Western Empire
Western Roman Empire

The Western Roman Empire refers to the western half of the Roman Empire, from its division by Diocletian in 285; the other half of the Roman Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire, today widely known as the Byzantine Empire....
 in AD 476. It followed the period known as the Principate
Principate

The Principate is the first period of the Roman Empire, extending from the beginning of the reign of Caesar Augustus to the Crisis of the Third Century, after which it was replaced with the Dominate....
. In the Eastern half of the Empire, and especially from the time of Justinian I
Justinian I

Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus , AD 482 or 483 ? 13 or 14 November 565, was the second member of the Justinian Dynasty and List of Roman Emperors from 527 until his death....
, the system of the Dominate evolved into Byzantine
Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
 absolutism.

The word is derived from the Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 dominus, meaning lord or master, as an owner versus his slave — this had been used sycophantically to address emperors from the Julio-Claudian (first) dynasty on, but not used by them as a style — Tiberius
Tiberius

Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus, born Tiberius Claudius Nero , was the second Roman Emperor, from the death of Augustus in AD 14 until his own death in 37....
 in particular is said to have reviled it openly. It became common under Diocletian
Diocletian

Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus , born Diocles and commonly known as Diocletian , was Roman Emperor from November 20, 284 to May 1, 305....
, who is therefore a logical choice as the first ruler of the 'early' dominate. Historian David Potter describes the transformation of Government under Diocletian when describing the shifts in imagery the Emperor used to display his power (in this case the building of a huge new palace at Sirmium
Sirmium

Sirmium was an ancient city in Roman Pannonia. Sirmium originally was an Illyrians town conquered by the Ancient Rome in the 1st century BC. It was a very important town in the later Roman Empire, being the economic capital of Roman Pannonia and one of the four capital cities of the Roman Empire....
):

The style of Government so memorably described by Marcus, whereby the emperor sought to show himself as a model of correct aristocratic deportment, had given way to a style in which the emperor was seen to be distinct from all other mortals. His house could no longer be a grander version of houses that other people might live in: it, like him, had to be different.

The first phase of Imperial government, known as the Principate
Principate

The Principate is the first period of the Roman Empire, extending from the beginning of the reign of Caesar Augustus to the Crisis of the Third Century, after which it was replaced with the Dominate....
, when the formalities of the constitutionally-never-abolished republic were still very much the 'politically correct' image, has also often been said to have ended after the Third Century Crisis
Crisis of the Third Century

Crisis of the Third Century was the crumbling and near collapse of the Roman Empire between 235 and 284 caused by invasion, civil war, Plague of Cyprian, and economic collapse....
 of 235–284, which concluded when Diocletian
Diocletian

Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus , born Diocles and commonly known as Diocletian , was Roman Emperor from November 20, 284 to May 1, 305....
 established himself as Emperor
List of Roman Emperors

The title of Roman Emperor, although in some ways a modern concept, effectively summarises the position held by those individuals who wielded power in the Roman Empire....
. Moving the notion of the Emperor away from the republican forms of the Empire's first three centuries, Diocletian introduced a novel system of joint rule by four, the tetrarchy
Tetrarchy

Tetrarchy can be applied to any system of government where power is divided between four individuals. The term is usually used to refer to the tetrarchy instituted by Roman Emperor Diocletian in 293 which lasted until c. 313....
, and he and his colleagues and his successors (in two imperial territories, east and west, not four) chose to stop using the title princeps, instead openly displaying the naked face of Imperial power and adopting a Hellenistic style of government more influenced by the veneration of the Eastern potentates of ancient Egypt
Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
 and Persia
Persian Empire

The 'Persian Empire' was a series of successive Iranian or Persianization empires that ruled over the Iranian plateau, the original Persian homeland, and beyond in Southwest Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus....
 than by the heritage of civic collegiality amongst the governing class passed down from the days of the 'uncrowned' Roman Republic
Roman Republic

The Roman Republic was the phase of the Ancient Rome characterized by a republican form of government; a period which began with the overthrow of the Roman Roman Kingdom, c....
.

  • Arguably, more crucial than the chosen title was the earlier adoption of a divine status as divus, originally a posthumous exceptional honour awarded by the senate, later granted to the living emperor (and some members of his dynasty), becoming an unwritten prerogative of the crown.


  • Another clear symptom of the upgrading of the imperial status was that he came to incarnate the notion (abstract under the uncrowned republic) of the majesty
    Majesty

    Majesty is an English language word derived ultimately from the Latin Maiestas, meaning Greatness....
     of Rome, so that lese majeste
    Lèse majesté

    L?se majest? is the crime of violating majesty, an offense against the dignity of a reigning monarch or against a state.This behavior was first classified as a criminal offense against the dignity of the Roman Republic in Ancient Rome....
     became high treason.


  • Contemporary historians reject the interpretation of the transition from Principate to Dominate as a clear, easily definable break (cf. Late Antiquity
    Late Antiquity

    Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the transitional centuries from Classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world: generally from the end of the Roman Empire's Crisis of the Third Century to the Islamic conquests and the re-organization of the Byzantine Empire under...
    ). Rather, they now characterise it as a much more subtle, gradual transformation, in which Diocletian's reforms of the Imperial office, while significant, are but one point on a sliding scale. Nevertheless, the distinction between two primary phases of Imperial government in Rome remains an important and useful one.