Imperator: history and meaning of a legal institution

Abstract

Origin and meaning of the term. The different imperial typologies: empire as synonymous with a great territorial potentate which has other territorial, quasi-sovereign entities under it, placed under a superordinate monarch such as the S.R.I., the Napoleonic empire; or empire is a great territorial power subject to a single sovereign who, given the complex reality of the state due to the plurality or peculiarities of the territories that compose it, with different ethnic characteristics, traditions and cultures, has maintained - for some of them - the previous political-juridical structure becoming the prince replacing previous dynasties, such as the Austrian Empire, the Russian Empire. The empire also contained within itself the concept of sacredness, especially in Japan.