Imperator

[3] During the later Roman Republic and during the late Republican civil wars, imperator mainly was the honorific title assumed by certain military commanders.

After an especially great victory, an army's troops in the field would proclaim their commander imperator, an acclamation necessary for a general to apply to the Senate for a triumph.

[5] Next, it was given to Lucius Cornelius Sulla in 95 BC as governor or pro consul of the Cilician province for his returning of Ariobarzanes I to the Cappadocia throne.

At first the term continued to be used in the Republican sense as a victory title, but attached to the de facto monarch and head of state, rather than the commander of the military.

This was necessarily imprecise as it lost the nuances of Latin political thought contrasting imperium with other forms of public authority.

It signalled at various points the king's equality with the Byzantine Emperor and Holy Roman Emperor, his rule by conquest or military superiority, his rule over several people groups ethnic or religious, and his claim to suzerainty over the other kings of the peninsula, both Christian and Muslim.

[8] This title was used throughout the period 1079–81, which represents the peak of his imperial pretensions before his capture of the city of Toledo, ancient capital of the Visigoths.

His most elaborate imperial title was ego Adefonsus imperator totius Castelle et Toleto necnon et Nazare seu Alave ("I, Alfonso, emperor of all Castile and of Toledo also and of Nájera, or Álava").

In the fifteenth century Bayezid II established diplomatic relations with some Christian European states, and sent a document to the King of Poland in which he used the titles Sultan Dei gratia Asie, Grecie etc.

When Fortuna is identified "imperatrix mundi" in the Carmina Burana, the term describes the Goddess Fortune, or a personification of her, it is as the "ruler of the world".