He hastened to propitiate the former by a donative of twice the usual amount, and excused his hasty acceptance of the throne to the senate by alleging the impatient zeal of the soldiers and the necessity of an imperator for the welfare of the state.
After a little hesitation Trajan accepted the position, which was marked by the titles of imperator, Caesar and Germanicus, and by the tribunician authority.
In 198 he received the title of Caesar, and in 209 those of Imperator and Augustus.
Julius Caesar was the first who used the title continuously (from 58 B.C. to his death in 44 B.C.), as well domi as militiae; and his nephew Augustus took a further step when he made the term imperator a praenomen, a practice which after the time of Nero becomes regular.
The Servians again installed themselves in Upper Albania about 1180, and the provinces of Scutari and Prizren were ruled by kings of the house of Nemanya till 1360; Stefan Dushan (1331-1358), the greatest of these monarchs, included all Albania in his extensive but short-lived empire, and took the title of Imperator Romaniae Slavoniae et Albaniae (emperor of the Greeks, Slays and Albanians).
