Was Julius Caesar The First Roman Emperor?

This is a great question someone asked me in the comments of my YouTube channel.

Was Julius Caesar the first Roman Emperor?

No, but he clearly wanted to be.

Actually, the Romans never called their emperors emperor, that's an English word. Roman emperors took the title Augustus, which means something like majestic, great, wonderful guy. They also took titles like imperator (commander), princeps (number one guy), and caesar, which makes the whole thing confusing.

But Caesar was just a common name in the Julian family, and only became a title after the emperors adopted it.

But the first guy to hold all of these titles was Octavian, the adopted son of Julius Caesar. We call him Augustus, and he's considered to be the first emperor.

But he called himself Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus - Commander Caesar, son of a god, the honoured one.

Man had a big ego

Check it out on YouTube: Was Julius Caesar The First Roman Emperor?