Principate

The Principate was the early period of the Roman Empire, beginning with the reign of Augustus as the first Roman emperor in 27 BC and conventionally lasting until the late third century, often linked to the Crisis of the Third Century. The Principate as a term is inspired by the position of princeps senatus that had existed during the previous Roman Republic. Augustus refashioned the concept of a princeps ('leading citizen' or 'first citizen') that had previously applied to Roman nobility, but now became a title for the sole ruler of Rome. Later Roman emperors also contributed in defining the role of the princeps in Roman society. Proposed in the 19th-century by the German scholar Theodor Mommsen, he viewed the Principate as a constitutional system in which imperial authority was formally embedded within Republican institutions before its rupture into the Dominate. Since the early 20th century, scholars have increasingly rejected this view, calling the Principate a variant of monarchy and putting more emphasis on the Augustan Principate over the Dominate. Principate continues to be used as a periodisation scheme of Roman rule.