Definition of "Imperator"

By a law of the tribunes L. Marius and M. Cato penalties were imposed upon all Imperatores who should be found guilty of having made false returns to the senate, and it was ordained that so soon as they returned to the city they should be required to attest the correctness of such documents upon oath before the city quaestor. […] But to compensate in some degree for what was then taken away, the custom was introduced of bestowing what were Triumphalia Ornamenta, that is, permission to receive the titles bestowed upon and to appear in public with the robes worn by the Imperatores of the commonwealth when they triumphed, and to bequeath to their descendants triumphal statues.

1848, William Smith, editor, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 2nd edition, London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly, […]: John Murray, […], pages 1164 and 1167

He [w:Trajan] was careful to distinguish and reward merit, and raised men of family, and the kindred of former Imperators, into situations of prominence or command.

1850, Mrs. Hamilton Gray [i.e., w:Elizabeth Caroline Gray], Emperors of Rome from Augustus to Constantine, Being a Continuation of the History of Rome, London: Thomas Hatchard, […], page 250

They were permitted to receive the titles bestowed on the Imperatores of the Republic; to appear in the garb worn by them, a gold embroidered dress (‘toga picta’), and flowered tunic (‘tunica palmeata’), and a crown of laurel.

1861, Percival Frost, The Germania and Agricola of Tacitus, with Notes (Grammar School Classics), London: Whittaker and Co. […]; George Bell, […], page 154

It is convenient to consider the Imperial dignity as that which originated in the Imperatores of Rome; the Kingship of Italy, symbolized by the iron crown, as a title resting on the subjugation of the Lombards.

1863, R[obert] G[ordon] Latham, The Nationalities of Europe, volume II, London: Wm. H. Allen & Co., […], page 335

The free citizens of Rome become the slaves of an autocratic government. They fall a prey to the unlimited sway of Imperators who again give birth to a Nero and a Caligula.

1896, Charles Hermann Leibbrand, This Age of Ours: Containing The Book of Problems and The Book of Socialism, 2nd edition, London: w:Sampson Low, Marston & Company, page 251

For within the principia the highest, and focal, point of the whole ensemble is formed by the ‘temple of the standards’, on whose lintel a Latin inscription proudly proclaimed the completion of the work: ‘The Repairers of their world and Propagators of the human race, our Lords Diocletianus and Maximianus, the most unconquered Imperatores, and Constantius and Maximianus (i.e., Galerius), the most noble Caesares, have successfully founded the camp (castra), under the care of Sossianus Hierocles, vir perfectissimus, governor (praeses) of the province, devoted to their numen and maiestas’.

1993, Fergus Millar, The Roman Near East, 31 BC – AD 337, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, page 182

The upheavals of the late 18th and early 19th centuries brought to the fore Napoleon Bonaparte (possibly the last of the Imperators) on one side, and popular ‘heroes’ such as Horatio Nelson and the Duke of Wellington on the other.

1998, David R. Sear, The History and Coinage of the Roman Imperators 49-27 BC, Spink and Son Ltd, page ix