Praetorial provinces. While this appeared to be a sharing of power between Octavian and the senate, the actual result was that Octavian now controlled most of the Roman army. Octavian was also granted the title of "Augustus" by the senate and was made the master of the state by the Senate and the People of Rome. He also took the title of Princeps, or "first citizen". In this, he attempted to establish himself as the "first among equals" rather than as a king, since even by this point in time, monarchy was still repugnant to most Romans. He had taken the dictatorial powers that his adopted father had taken almost twenty years before, but had done so in the spirit of the republican constitution. In 23 BC, Augustus (as Octavian now called himself) again attempted to reform the constitution, although it is not known why he chose to reform the constitution at this point. Four years had passed since his last reforms, and this may have given him the opportunity to discover the weaknesses in those reforms. In addition, he almost died in 23 BC, and thus he may have thought that his time left was short. To Augustus, one major weakness in his constitution was his status as Consul. While it is true that his prestige minimized the risk of obstruction at the hands of a co-Consul, this risk still existed. It was also unusual (and unprecedented) for an individual to be elected to the Consulship nine times in a row, as Augustus had been. In addition, tradition did subject the Consulship to certain restrictions, such as the traditional etiquette shown by the two Consuls towards each other. While Augustus did consider the possibility to making himself sole Consul, he realized that this was too radical of a departure from tradition. Therefore, as a 'concession', he gave up his Consulship, and modified both his Proconsular imperium and his Tribunician powers. It is not known exactly how Augustus modified his Proconsular imperium, but it is known that he was allowed to retain this imperium in the city of Rome. Normally, any magistrate had to surrender their imperium while they were inside the city. In addition, his Proconsular imperium was formally modified to give him both a status and an authority above even a Consul. Since these changes gave him an unprecedented ability to coerce citizens, he risked damaging his popularity.