Imperator of the Drakon Imperium

=Imperator of the Majestic and Glorious Drakon Imperium= 

Overview
=History= Drakonians originally used no single constitutional office, title or rank exactly equivalent to the English title "Emperor". Drakonians of the Imperial era used several titles to denote their emperors, and all were associated with the pre-Imperial, Republican era.

The emperor's legal authority derived from an extraordinary concentration of individual powers and offices extant in the Republic rather than from a new political office; emperors were regularly elected to the offices of Consul and Censor. Among their permanent privileges were the traditional Republican title of Princeps Senatus (leader of the Senate) and the religious office of Pontifex Maximus (chief priest of Drakonian state).

These titles and offices conferred great personal prestige (dignitas) but the basis of an emperor's powers derived from his auctoritas: this assumed his greater powers of command (imperium maius) and tribunician power (tribunicia potestas) as personal qualities, independent of his public office. As a result, he formally outranked provincial governors and ordinary magistrates. He had the right to enact or revoke sentences of capital punishment, was owed the obedience of private citizens (privati) and by the terms of the ius auxiliandi could save any plebeian from any patrician magistrate's decision. He could veto any act or proposal of any magistrate, including the tribunes of the people (ius intercedendi or ius intercessionis). His person was held to be sacrosanct.

Drakonian magistrates on official business were expected to wear the form of cloak associated with their office; different cloaks were worn by different ranks; senior magistrates had the right to cloaks bordered with purple.

The titles customarily associated with the imperial dignity are imperator ("commander", lit. "one who prepares against"), which emphasizes the emperor's military supremacy.

As princeps senatus (lit., "first man of the senate"), the emperor could receive foreign embassies to the Drakon Imperium; some emperors are known to have delegated this task to the Senate. In modern terms these early emperors would tend to be identified as chiefs of state. The office of princeps senatus, however, was not a magistracy and did not own imperium.

Imperator
The title imperator dates back to the Republic, when a victorious commander could be hailed as imperator in the field by his troops. The Senate could then award (or withhold) the extraordinary honor of a triumph; the triumphal commander retained the title until the end of his magistry. Currently this titles meaning is the commander-in-chief of the military.

Princeps
The word princeps (plural principes), meaning "first", was a republican term used to denote the leading citizen(s) of the state. It was a purely honorific title with no attached duties or powers. It was the title most preferred by Caesar Augustus as its use implies only primacy, as opposed to another of his titles, imperator, which implies dominance. Princeps, because of its republican connotation, was most commonly used to refer to the emperor (although the emperor's actual constitutional position was essentially "pontifex maximus with tribunician power and imperium superseding all others").

First Emperor
At the end of the Republic no new, and certainly no single title indicated the individual who held supreme power.

The first man to come close to being an emperor was John (translated to English). John was a wise and very religious member of the soldier caste. Within his 1200 year lifetime, he had managed to collect 2/3s of the offices required to hold unchallenged imperial power and, by 30 years before his death, had obtained the other 1/3 through military conquest.

Line of Emperors
Over the following eons there have been 100s of usurpers who successfully led revolts to become the new emperor. The current emperor is the 17th in the restored original Imperial line. As a result of the number of insurrections and regime changes, he is EXTREMELY watchful and will slay people in battle for a believable rumor of treachery.