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For the state theres an obvious advantage, coins are a lot easier to use than raw gold so there's a benefit to the economy (assuming you can stop them being debased). So that's why emperor's did it. But for your average oligarch it's mostly just propaganda (or maybe theres a coin shortage in their region).

Coins were used to pay troops, that spent them in the territory the army traversed.

You run into the problem of differences in silver/gold/etc content, so in addition to the difference in price between gold and silver themselves, the weights and purity of coins varied. Rome was a very sophisticated place to have a monetized economy under those circumstances. A merchant had to have a keen eye and good scales. It’s should be no real surprise that the economy in the West reverted to barter eventually. Imagine having a bag of euro and dollars and kroner today without access to a computer to know their immediate value.

The consensus (not always the same as the truth) is that coins were first minted as a guarantee of purity/honest weight of the precious metals. Of course the people doing this put their logo on the product.

There is some evidence that gold coins were ceasing to be currency and becoming a method of hoarding gold in the latter half of the 3rd century.

Japan had a similar setup with daimyos, shoguns, and the emperor.

Doubtful it's related to Rome, but still an interesting similarity.

What about Mesopotamia?

I find the King and emperor relationship a good example. Just a twist with the Caesar is that i think it also implies succession. Maybe like a king and crown prince relationship.

That isn't where that system originated. It goes back to the Persians, mycaneans, Egyptians, and nearly the whole civilized history of the near east. Probably the most recorded widespread Era of this was the middle to late bronze age. It was an ever changing patch work of large empires with their "kings of the world" imposing their authority over smaller kings of territories. The tradition goes back as far as the sumerians. Another example is when the hittite emperor writes to the mycanean king and calls him a "great king" and differentiates between that kings Control over his petty kings. The same can be seen between Egypt and the hittites in the treaty of kadesh.

That's just the pretense to justify being granted a special title to circumvent the disliked rex. In actual practice "princeps" basically was conceived to indicate rulership as an alternative to rex and is essentially equivalent to rex.

Until it was eliminated, even if other titles were typically favoured, Princeps was the title that legally most indicated "the ruler of the empire" (it essentially meant that it was "right" for you to be in charge).

Its a very indepth topic, but I chose field marshal because I feel it best captures the full intent of how the title was used.

Originally imperator was more of a mere description referring to anyone who holds imperium, but over time it started to be used as a specific title that would be acclaimed by high ranking men after great victories. And then under empire was highly restricted to essentially only the main leaders. Added note in roman society 'command' was a significant status with significant legal implications and not something to be viewed as just a "military leadership" role

The closest parable to this sense is the 5 star marshal rank, which is a supreme rank but is not a standard position but instead typically given as an honor after wars and victories to leaders of militaries. And in fact dictators often take field marshal as their key title for much of this reason.

"General of the Army" (the 5 star rank equivalent to marshal) would actually be the closer parable. In the US the title is mostly only given out as a great honour particularly after victory/war.

Imperator similarly is an honor title granted for success. Many emperors would in fact be proclaimed imperator multiple times for major achievements they attained, as opposed to a simple title equivalent to head of the army.

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