Principate

The Principate was the form of imperial government of the Roman Empire from the beginning of the reign of Augustus in 27 BC to the end of the Crisis of the Third Century in AD 284, after which it evolved into the Dominate.

[6] Scipio Aemilianus and his circle had fostered the (quasi-Platonic) idea that authority should be invested in the worthiest citizen (princeps), who would beneficently guide his peers, an ideal of the patriot statesman later taken up by Cicero.

This early Principate phase began when Augustus claimed auctoritas for himself as princeps, and continued (depending on the source) up to the rule of Commodus, of Maximinus Thrax, or of Diocletian.

Although dynastic pretenses crept in from the start, formalizing this in a monarchic style remained politically perilous;[10] and Octavian was undoubtedly correct to work through established Republican forms to consolidate his power.

[24] Generally speaking, it was expected of the Emperor to be generous but not frivolous, not just as a good ruler but also with his personal fortune (as in the proverbial "bread and circuses" – panem et circenses) providing occasional public games, gladiators, chariot races and artistic shows.

While many of the same cultural and political expectations remained, the civilian aspect of the Augustan ideal of the princeps gradually gave way to the military role of the imperator.

Though later scholars would often cite this as an ideal system in which succession to the position of princeps was determined on the basis of ability rather than heredity, that this was the intention of the emperors themselves has generally been rejected by modern scholarship.

[30] He replaced the one-headed principate with the Tetrarchy (c. AD 300, two Augusti ranking above two Caesares),[31] in which the vestigial pretense of the old republican forms was largely abandoned.