dominate

1. (historical) The late period of the Roman Empire, following the principate, during which the emperor's rule became more explicitly autocratic and remaining vestiges of the Roman Republic were removed from the formal workings of government; the reign of any particular emperor during this period.Examples: "During the Dominate this tendency was perfected to the point of dirigism in the modern sense, a state-directed society and state-controlled economy, obliterating, once again a prelude to modern times, the laissez-faire climate that had characterized the economic self-determination of the individual under the republic and the Principate."; "1996, Clare Krojzl (translator), Sebastian Hensel, III: From Diocletian to Alaric [1886, lecture notes], Theodor Mommsen (editor), A History of Rome Under the Emperors, C.H.Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Republished 2005, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), eBook, page 317, The dominate of Diocletian and Constantine differs more sharply from the principate than the latter does from the Republic."; "1997, Thomas Dunlap (translator), Herwig Wolfram, The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples, [1990, Das Reich und die Germanen], University of California Press, 2005, Paperback, page 55, Once someone had attained senatorial dignity by way of the successful tenure of some appropriate magistracy, one of the most important mechanisms of the dominate kicked in: all social rankings and professions were to a large extent heritable."countablehistoricaluncountable