During the days of the Roman Empire, were the Romans aware that

>>2586385
>implying republicans hate nobility
Yes that's why NEW MAN wasn't a title

>>2586385
Also the emperors held multiple offices so only near the end is it solely imperator which means emperor solely

Are you saying they did in fact not know that they wuz kangz?

>>2586481
Our brothas and sistas must only have forgotten because they forgot themselves

>>2586385
After decades of civil war everybody tacitly understood were the result of the republican system being too small for the empire it was governing, Rome eased into the imperial system quietly. Augustus declared his father Caesar had ascended to godhood and become a kind of eternal chairman while he as the First Citizen didn't even have official power for apart from his duties as Pontifex Maximus, chief priest of Rome.

After a couple of decades the unprecedented, for their lifetimes as least, peace and prosperity under the emperors calmed most peoples worries and they stopped playing coy and called the emperor the emperor. The senate continued to act as an outlet for upper class ambition for centuries after it had lost actual power. So anybody who wanted to believe they still lived in a republic could point to the senate in Rome and comfort themselves that it was working.