, by Adrian Goldsworthy. My previous knowledge of Caesar comes from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar 
and, I'm somewhat embarrassed to say, a series about Rome
by Colleen McCullough--better known as the author of The Thornbirds
.McCullough's "Masters of Rome" series is actually well researched and historically accurate to known facts, but the literary level of the writing is still on a par with Thornbirds. Still, I learned a lot of Roman history from the volumes I read. I have not read them all because I get sick of them, but I did read about the first three or four, I think. The first ones deal with Sulla and Marius, and you do get that sense, which historians confirm, that Sulla was both fascinating and sinister.
Caesar's influence on Western history was such that his name came to mean a ruler. The German word Kaiser and the Russian word Tsar (sometimes spelled Czar) both derive from Caesar. But before Julius Caesar, it was just a name, a cognomen--a nickname that became hereditary. Caesar's first name was Gaius, or Caius, and Julius was his family name. Caesar was a cognomen of some, but not all, of the Julius family, the Julii. His adopted son, who became Caesar Augustus, had the same cognomen, and after them people who were or fancied themselves to be some type of heir to the Roman emperors called themselves Caesar.
3 comments:
As in Caesar Augustus?
Caesar Augustus was Julius Caesar's nephew, or great-nephew, I forget which, the son or grandson of Julius Caesar's sister. Julius Caesar put in his will that his nephew, Gaius Octavius, would be his heir and be his adopted son. After Julius Caesar was assassinated (Et tu, Brute?), Gaius Octavius took his name and became Octavius Caesar. After defeating his uncle's assassins, he became the first Roman emperor and eventually received the name Augustus, so became Caesar Ausustus. He was the emporer of the Roman Empire when Jesus was born.
Augustus, not Ausustus.
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