Was Julius Caesar a Roman Emperor?

People who know very little about the Roman Empire will tell you that Julius Caesar was a Roman emperor. People who know a little bit more about the Roman Empire will tell you that Julius Caesar never held the title of emperor, but rather only the title of dictator perpetuo, meaning “dictator in perpetuity.”

Both of these groups of people are wrong. The truth is that things are complicated. Our English word emperor is derived from the Latin word imperator, which is a title that Julius Caesar actually held. Nonetheless, this title didn’t quite mean what we think of as “emperor” in the time when Julius Caesar was alive. In order to answer the question of whether Julius Caesar was a Roman emperor, we need to talk about how titles can change meaning over time.

The origins of the word emperor

The English word emperor is derived from the Anglo-Norman word emperour, which is, in turn, derived from the Old French word empereor, which is ultimately derived from the Latin word imperator, a third-declension masculine noun. This is one of many official titles held by Roman emperors throughout the history of the empire. The word did not, however, always mean the same thing as the English word emperor.

The word imperator is derived from the Latin first-conjugation verb imperare, meaning “to command.” For most of the history of the Roman Republic, this title was applied to any representative of the Roman state who possessed imperium (i.e., legitimate authority to issue official commands and expect unquestioning obedience).

By the time of Julius Caesar in the first century BCE, however, the meaning of the word imperator had changed; it had become chiefly an honorary title that Roman soldiers could confer upon their general after an especially great victory. A general was required to have first been acclaimed by his troops as an imperator before he could request the Senate for permission to hold a triumph.

ABOVE: Photograph of a Roman gold coin depicting a consul followed by two lictors. During the Roman Republic, consuls possessed imperium, meaning each consul was an imperator.

Imperator Gaius Julius Caesar

As I have already mentioned, Julius Caesar actually did hold the title of imperator. His own troops reportedly first acclaimed him by this title in 60 BCE while he was serving as the propraetor of Hispania Ulterior. Later, in the 50s BCE, his troops acclaimed him as imperator again while he was serving as a general in Gaul.

Finally, in around 46 or 45 BCE, Caesar forced the Roman Senate to grant him the title imperator as an official praenomen. The later biographer Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (lived c. 69 – after c. 122 CE) describes this as one of many acts Caesar committed that outraged members of the Senate. He writes in his Life of Julius Caesar 76.1, as translated by J. C. Rolfe:

“Yet after all, his other actions and words so turn the scale, that it is thought that he abused his power and was justly slain. For not only did he accept excessive honours, such as an uninterrupted consulship, the dictatorship for life, and the censorship of public morals, as well as the forename Imperator, the surname of Father of his Country, a statue among those of the kings, and a raised couch in the orchestra; but he also allowed honours to be bestowed on him which were too great for mortal man: a golden throne in the House and on the judgment seat; a chariot and litter in the procession at the circus; temples, altars, and statues beside those of the gods; a special priest, an additional college of the Luperci, and the calling of one of the months by his name. In fact, there were no honours which he did not receive or confer at pleasure.”

By this time, Julius Caesar was becoming a figure that we might legitimately think of as “imperial” in the modern sense. The exuberant honors and titles that Caesar demanded from the Senate, however, made many Senators fear that he would try to flat-out declare himself king. Thus, a group of at least sixty Senators, led by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, and Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, assassinated him in the Theatre of Pompeius Magnus on 15 March 44 BCE.

Most people today are aware of Julius Caesar’s assassination. There are also, however, a number of misconceptions about it. Notably, as I discuss in this article I originally published in March 2017, it is certain that Caesar never really said “Et tu, Brute?” This line was actually invented by William Shakespeare for his tragedy Julius Caesar, which was first performed in around 1599 or thereabouts.

ABOVE: Depiction of picture-bearers from The Triumph of Caesar, painted between 1484 and 1492 by Andrea Mantegna

Why Julius Caesar isn’t usually considered a “Roman emperor”

Julius Caesar was a Roman. And he definitely held the title of imperator. Why is it, then, that historians don’t generally think of him as a “Roman emperor”? I think there are a few reasons. One reason is because Julius Caesar ultimately failed to impose stable authoritarian rule; he spent most of his life fighting wars against various opponents and, although he returned to Rome in 46 BCE after having vanquished his enemies in the east, his assassination soon thereafter cut his rule abruptly short.

Nearly two decades of civil wars and bloodshed followed Julius Caesar’s assassination until, finally, his grandnephew and adoptive son Octavian became the sole autocratic ruler of the Roman Empire. He ruled for forty-one years until his eventual death on 19 August 14 CE at the age of seventy-five. He was immediately succeeded by his wife’s son Tiberius, thereby initiating the first semi-stable imperial dynasty in Roman history. It is partly for these reasons that historians generally think of Octavian as the “first Roman emperor,” rather than Julius Caesar.

Another reason why Octavian, not Julius Caesar, is thought of as the “first Roman emperor” is because, although Julius Caesar did hold the title of imperator, there are other important Latin titles that he never formally held that later became inextricably associated with the position of Roman emperor as we know it.

Most importantly, on 16 January 27 BCE, Octavian compelled the Senate to grant him the titles Augustus, meaning “Majestic One,” and Princeps, meaning “First Citizen.” These are both titles that Julius Caesar never formally held and that Octavian designed with the deliberate intention to emphasize his auctoritas (i.e., “prestige” or “reputation”) and downplay his potestas (i.e., “power” or “might”).

Octavian tried very hard to maintain the illusion that he was merely a respected holder of republican office and not truly an autocrat. It was partly by doing this that he managed to avoid offending the Senatorial elites who might have otherwise tried to assassinate him. (He also, of course, routinely arranged for anyone he suspected of plotting against his rule to be killed without trial. That probably also deterred people from standing against him.)

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the Augustus of Prima Porta, a famous marble statue of Augustus dated to the first century CE