Was autocratic

Usage examples of dictated.

Such are the circumstances of this ostentatious and improbable relation, dictated, as it too plainly appears, by the vanity of the monarch, adorned by the unblushing servility of his flatterers, and received without contradiction by a distant and obsequious senate.

The masters of the Roman world surrounded their throne with darkness, concealed their irresistible strength, and humbly professed themselves the accountable ministers of the senate, whose supreme decrees they dictated and obeyed.

Though Firesong had dictated the existence of the indoor garden, planned the general look of it, and sculpted the stones, it was An'desha who had filled it with growing things, and given it life.

Now he was taking down what the creature dictated into his mind, without a second thought.

Prudence dictated that one should never extend himself past his ability to predict outcomes.

It was another dance, the steps dictated by the custom of ages past, every move choreographed centuries ago.

The orders as he had dictated them gave him the authority to coopt regimental groups or smaller, depending on need, but only if they were not currently deployed on some other duty.

Thus Augustus, after all his fairer prospects had been snatched from him by untimely deaths, rested his last hopes on Tiberius, obtained for his adopted son the censorial and tribunitian powers, and dictated a law, by which the future prince was invested with an authority equal to his own, over the provinces and the armies.

As magistrates and senators they were admitted into the great council, which had once dictated laws to the earth, whose authority was so often prostituted to the vilest purposes of tyranny.

This new and injudicious violation of the constitution was probably dictated either by the ignorance of his Syrian courtiers, or the fierce disdain of his military followers.

In this extremity, a resolution that must either complete or prevent their ruin, was dictated by despair.

But in that motley composition, dictated by reason and passion, by enthusiasm and by selfish motives, some useful and sublime truths were disgraced by a mixture of the most abject and dangerous superstition.

Motives like these dictated a decree, by which the election of a new emperor was referred to the suffrage of the military order.

Reason had dictated, and content seems to have accompanied, his retreat, in which he enjoyed, for a long time, the respect of those princes to whom he had resigned the possession of the world.

The death of Severianus will admit of less excuse, as it was dictated neither by revenge nor by policy.