Editing Dominate (section)

== Historiography ==
Theodor Mommsen's ''Dominate'' was based on constitutional law, with the idea that there was a change in the power of the emperor as embodied with the concept of ''[[nomos empsychos]]''.{{sfnm|Ando|2001|1p=409|Bleicken|1978|2pp=6, 9}} Historians described the Dominate as the foundation of the Pan-European government of bureaucratic absolute monarchy, in stark contrast to the laissez-faire and economic self-determination of the individual under the republic and the Principate.{{sfn|Loewenstein|1973|p=238}} 

In 1978, Bleicken disputed this interpretation and calls the division of imperial rule between ''principate'' and ''dominate'' as not based on any constitutional change, and that both terms are unsuitable for periodisation.{{sfn|Bleicken|1978|pp=8, 22-25, 27-28}} That it was used to show a comparison to the oriental Persian court to make it "un-Roman" and separate the history from Greco-Roman Antiquity.{{sfn|Bleicken|1978|pp=6-7, 15 30}} Bleicken further asserts that Mommsen's perspective was influenced less by the Romans themselves and more by the socio-political climate of the 18th and 19th centuries.{{sfn|Bleicken|1978|p=30}} During those times, citizens emerged from the rule of Napoleon and other despots, where people's perceived their freedoms contrasting sharply with the freedoms of earlier eras. Markéta Melounová's analysis of judicial trials in 2012, specifically the punishment of religious and political crimes, found that they did not differ much in the periods of the ''Dominate'' and the ''Principate''.{{sfn|Melounová|2014|p=128}}

The Oxford Classical Dictionary regards ''Dominate'' as a near-obsolete term.<ref>{{Citation |title=Principate |date=2015-12-22 |work=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Classics |url=https://oxfordre.com/classics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-5332 |access-date=2025-02-13 |language=en |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.5332 |isbn=978-0-19-938113-5|url-access=subscription }}</ref>