Emperor in tears, intermittently missing Old Dominion (5)
I believe the answer is:
nerva
'emperor' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'in tears intermittently missing old dominion' is the wordplay.
'intermittently' means one should take alternating letters.
'missing old dominion' becomes 'va' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'in'+'tears'='intears'
The alternating letters of 'intears' are 'ner'.
'ner'+'va'='NERVA'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for nerva that I've seen before include "Short-lived emperor" , "Roman emperor, ninety six to ninety eight" .)