A Tale Of Two Caesars
A Tale Of Two Caesars
A Tale Of Two Caesars
Grizzlies are not known for their tolerant and forgiving natures.
Caesar was a very special grizzly
AVE, TRVE TO CAESAR
Oh boy, Roman nomenclature? You are a daring one to go down THIS rabbit hole! It is confusing, definitely!
Put in the shortest possible terms, 'Gaius' was the personal name, and 'Julius Caesar' were the family names of the dictator and conqueror.
Gaius Octavius was the great-nephew of Gaius Julius Caesar. However, when Caesar's will named him as Caesar's adoptive son and heir, Octavius took on the family names - Julius Caesar. Thus making him, also, Gaius Julius Caesar.
For this reason, he's sometimes referred to as 'Octavian' or 'Octavianus' ('formerly Octavius'). Later in life, after he had solidified his hold on power, he badgered the Senate into granting him the name/title of 'Augustus' - 'Exalted One' - the name by which he's generally known as Emperor.
Later Roman Emperors would adopt the name 'Caesar' to identify themselves, initially, as part of the (theoretical) imperial family - later, 'Caesar' had become so widely used amongst the imperial family as a prestige title that it eventually became an office itself. In both cases, one could very easily simply say 'Caesar' to mean 'the ruler' in most cases, and colloquial use of the family name as a title predated its official classification as an office.
We could just call them Gaius I and II, or Gaius senior and junior
In both cases, one could very easily simply say 'Caesar' to mean 'the ruler' in most cases
It was my understanding that Caesar started to be used as the title for the designated heir, while Augustus was used as the title for the current emperor. Is that not correct? So the current emperor would name their heir Caesar, potentially giving them some co-monarch power, and thereby hopefully create a more stable transition once they die.
Explanation: Gaius Julius Caesar, of conqueror and dictator fame, went out of his way, before, during, and after his Civil War, to treat his enemies lightly, to not pursue vendettas or vengeance, and to pardon as many of his former foes as he could. By some ancient accounts, Caesar was naturally inclined towards mercy by his personality - a trait not always highly valued by the Romans, but sometimes respected as magnanimity. However, this was also certainly a shrewd political move - Caesar removed as many pretexts for his enemies to act against him as possible. How can you call a man a tyrant who has spared you, restored your offices and honors, and continued to support your electoral runs even after you took up arms against him? Who would support you conspiring against him after that?
Unfortunately, no amount of good reputation will save you from men who want you dead, and nothing spurs an aristocracy against you like the prospect of no longer being able to lord over the poors as much as they used to. Despite Caesar being a moderate (if lifelong) reformist rather than a radical, the conservatives who had opposed him his entire career let a handful of years pass before they up and assassinated him - causing the Roman people to riot against them for killing yet another reformist politician, and the most successful and popular one of them all, leading to the assassins' downfall.
Augustus, Julius Caesar's great-nephew and adoptive son, was much less merciful. Augustus took a more 'proactive' approach to his enemies. While Augustus, always the master propagandist, was careful to acquire reasonable excuses for doing so, he ensured that anyone who opposed him in the chaotic aftermath of Julius Caesar's assassination had their 'career' cut very short. And why shouldn't he, after all? Mercy had gotten his beloved great-uncle killed, even with all the power in Rome. Better to stab than be stabbed, right?
However, Augustus also got along better with the Senatorial aristocracy, in part because he murdered or expelled a good chunk of the ones that didn't get along with him, but also in part because he sought solutions outside of the normal reformer-conservative spectrum that had dominated the politics of the Late Republic. Seemingly, the Senate didn't mind their power withering away under a domineering autocrat so long as they didn't have to share power with the poors!
✨ 🎶 A tale as old as time 🎶✨
So in the end did the Romans get those reforms or did the aristocratic hellscape of the Late Republic continue until the Empire collapsed?
They got... different reforms. Augustus's solution was to distribute provincial land (funded by taxes on inheritances and slave sales) to retiring troops after set (long) enlistment periods, which merged the broader issue of land reform and veteran benefits, both of which were key to the political unrest of the Late Republic. The Senate, in the short-term, didn't have to share its power with the dreaded poors - in fact, the Popular Assemblies were almost entirely neutered, which was a key demand of the ultraconservatives in the Senate during the Late Republic.
The thing is, once the Senate (effectively) gave up their power (and any who weren't keen on doing so replaced by lickspittles by Augustus), all of their prior conservative demands meant jack shit. The Senate, instead of becoming the sole instrument of power that it dreamed of, became a rubber-stamp legislature and advisory council to the Emperor, while ambitious men increasingly climbed through the ranks of the (newly permanent and professional) Legions, which significantly altered the political discussions of Rome.
With power more nakedly in the hands of the men with swords, and those same men being settled largely in colonies in the provinces, the political discussion turned from land reform for Italian magnates, to broader issues of provincial inclusion in the Roman polity. Coincidentally, this also happened as the Roman Empire became increasingly urbanized (not just in the city of Rome itself) and wage labor and mercantile endeavors began to develop as a serious alternative to subsistence farming in many areas, along with a drop in the birth rates of Roman citizens, all of which also reduced pressure for land reform.
The aristocracy continued to be a problem, but a much reduced one for the next ~300 years of the Empire, since the levers of power and wealth were funneled to new, rising bureaucratic and mercantile classes, and the traditional land magnates were increasingly marginalized - especially since they no longer actually had the power to obstruct or construct legislation in their favor to enhance their wealth and power. This despite essentially getting all but one (supremacy of the Senate) of their core demands of Late Republic politics fulfilled. Funny how that works. All the policy successes in the world mean nothing without the power base that causes them.
Unfortunately, as the Empire fell apart in the Crisis of the Third Century and became increasingly rural and demonetized, and the central government weakened, land became the core of economic power again, and so the fundamentally unresolved issue of aristocratic land ownership allowed the aristocracy to reclaim massive political power and reduce the common folk of the Empire to a debased state of borderline slavery until the Empire fell entirely.