Editing SPQR (section)

==Historical context==
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The title's date of establishment is unknown, but it first appears in inscriptions of the [[Late Republic]], from around 80 BC onwards. Previously, the official name of the Roman state, as evidenced on coins, was simply ''ROMA''. The abbreviation last appears on coins of [[Constantine the Great]] (ruled 312–337 AD), the first Roman emperor to support [[Christianity]].{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}

This signature continued in use under the [[Roman Empire]]. The emperors were considered the ''[[de jure]]'' representatives of the people even though the ''[[Senatus consultum|senātūs consulta]]'', or decrees of the Senate, were made at the ''[[de facto]]'' pleasure of the emperor.{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}

''Populus Romanus'' in Roman literature is a phrase meaning the government of the People. When the Romans named governments of foreign states, they used ''populus'' in the singular or plural, such as ''populi Priscorum Latinorum'', "the governments of the Old Latins". ''Romanus'' is the established adjective used to distinguish the Romans, as in ''civis Romanus'', "[[Roman citizenship|Roman citizen]]".{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}

The Roman people appear very often in law and history in such phrases as ''dignitas'', ''maiestas'', ''auctoritas'', ''libertas populi Romani'', the "dignity, majesty, authority, freedom of the Roman people". They were a ''populus liber'', "a free people". There was an ''exercitus, imperium, iudicia, honores, consules, voluntas'' of this same ''populus'': "the army, rule, judgments, offices, consuls and will of the Roman people". They appear in early Latin as ''Popolus'' and ''Poplus'', so the habit of thinking of themselves as free and sovereign was quite ingrained.{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}

The Romans believed that all authority came from the people. It could be said that similar language seen in more modern political and social revolutions directly comes from this usage. People in this sense meant the whole government. The latter, however, was essentially divided into the aristocratic Senate, whose will was executed by the [[Roman consul|consul]]s and [[praetor]]s, and the ''comitia centuriata'', "committee of the centuries", whose will came to be safeguarded by the [[Tribune]]s.{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}

One of the ways the emperor [[Commodus]] (180–192) paid for his donatives and mass entertainments was to tax the senatorial order, and on many inscriptions, the traditional order is provocatively reversed (''Populus Senatusque...'').{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}