Caesar Augustus

Name

• Gaius Octavius: ( ; Latin:). According to Suetonius, Octavius received the cognomenThurinus (Latin:, 'of Thurii') in his infancy to commemorate his father's victory over followers of Spartacus at Thurii. Marcus Junius Brutus, the assassin of Octavian's adoptive father Julius Caesar, rejected Octavian's claim to testamentary adoption by Caesar by referring to him as Octavius.
• Gaius Julius Caesar: After Julius Caesar named Octavius his heir in 44 BC, Octavius took Caesar's nomen and cognomen. Historians often distinguished him from the late Caesar by adding Octavianus (Latin:) after the name, denoting that he was a former member of the gens Octavia. There is no evidence that Augustus did this himself, although some of his contemporaries called him Gaius Octavius, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, or "young Caesar". Historians usually refer to him as Octavian ( ) for the period between 44 and 27 BC.
• Imperator Caesar: Octavian's early coins and inscriptions all refer to him as Gaius Caesar, but by 38 BC he had replaced Gaius with the victory title imperator ('commander'). His family line continued the use of the name Caesar, a cognomen for one branch of the Julian family, and eventually this formed a standard imperial title.
• Imperator Caesar Augustus: In 27 BC the Senate granted him the honorific Augustus (Latin:) ('the revered'). Historians use this name, or its converse Augustus Caesar, to refer to him from 27 BC until his death in AD 14.