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Why did the legions during Imperial Rome continue to march under the SPQR banner? I can't really find anything about this on Google etc etc, but it seems hypocritical to continue to use the SPQR after the Republic era. From what I understand the Senate still existed, but they didn't have any real power. I did read somewhere it was still used on coinage as well. Any insight into this would be very useful.
Tradition more than anything, I suppose. The propaganda at the time of Augustus' time of emperor was that he was the 'saviour' of the republic, not someone who had replaced it with an entirely new order. The senate did continue to exist even into Byzantine times, even though it was less powerful than before. Even when the character of the Empire became increasingly "autocratic", it probably didn't occur to anyone that the name ought to be changed.
Incidentally, SPQ "X" has been used by many European cities since the middle ages.
Really?Quote:
Originally Posted by Kralizec
I had no clue about this. Any examples of cities, particularly from the Middle Ages, that have used the SPQ"x" banner?
Apparently, some German cities used SPQR or SPQ"X" in their coat of arms (or elsewhere) either to signify their roots in a roman colony (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weil_der_Stadt) or to signify their character as a self-administered free city (Hamburg or Bremen f.e.) analogous to Rome.
I don't know about cities outside of Germany, though.
There's a list of places that have the SPQx part on the wiki page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPQR#Modern_use
As I understand it, the emperor's legal claim to authority was that the senate "voluntarily" (ahem) granted him authority, and (theoretically, though not in practice) could take his authority away. In theory, the senate was still in charge. Its the old distinction between de facto and de jure.