At the same time, regardless ofideology, another development in the dynastic regime of Augustus and his successors was claiming Caesar a fossilized place in history - and dimming awareness of his personal contribution. Specific acts of a historical figure such as Genghis Khan may be forgotten while his name remains familiar as that of a formidable individual. But in Caesar’s case there was a particular factor to be taken into account: the increasingly emblematic and resonant use of the family name by the ruler and his kin.
Every man of the imperial gens down to the extinction of the male line of Augustus was a Caesar: this was their cognomen by birth or adoption. The clan name ‘‘Julius,’’ implied by ‘‘Caesar,’’ had belonged to members of other branches of the clan and dropped out of use in the family, except for Augustus’ female descendants; it was also passed on to enfranchised provincials and freed slaves. By contrast a woman could not be a Caesar, for the cognomen was not available to women, even in modified form (contrasting for example with that of the Caecilii Metelli). In addition, Julius Caesar had been the outstanding member of the family in his generation, with no brother and only a cousin, Lucius, reaching the consulship (64 BC). He speaks of himself in the Commentaries as Caesar and is so mentioned in Cicero’s Letters, with the praenomen Gaius added only when the occasion was formal (Fam. 1.9.7). The name brought an individual to mind and on the basis of the terms of his will the 18-year-old Octavius likewise became ‘‘the excellent boy, Caesar’’ (Fam. 10.28.3). When Cicero and his friends found grounds for mistrusting him they denied him the name that justified his turning on Caesar’s assassins (Cic. Brut. 1.16.5).
As one of the Triumvirs established to reconstitute Republican institutions Octa-vian needed military pomp to offset that of his colleague Mark Antony. He began to use Caesar as a pseudo-nomen, with the military salutation ‘‘Imperator’’ doing service as a praenomen. he became Imperator Caesar (Syme 1958a). Eleven years later Romans were able to greet their leader with his final designation, Imperator Caesar Augustus. The new honorific cognomen now firmly assigned ‘‘Caesar’’ to the position of a family name, gentilicium. However, it still remained available as a conventional cognomen in its original position for Augustus’ first sons by adoption, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, as it did later for Tiberius and Agrippa Postumus. Left in sole power in AD 14, Tiberius eschewed ‘‘Imperator’’ and tried to remain ‘‘Tiberius Caesar.’’ Towards ‘‘Augustus,’’ pressed on him by the Senate, he remained equivocal. Outsiders took it that he would bear the same designation as his predecessor, coins and official and unofficial inscriptions assigned it to him. But the ambiguity of ‘‘Augustus,’’ so much the property of his predecessor, and Tiberius’ own scruples made it inevitable that ‘‘Caesar’’ could still conventionally and courteously be used in addressing and referring to the Emperor, as it had been under Augustus. a gold coin of 16 BC shows a veiled priest sacrificing on behalf of the Roman People ‘‘for the good health of Caesar’’ (RIC 12 69, no. 369). The text of Tacitus’ Annals offers ample illustration; it shows that ‘‘Caesar’’ was what Tiberius was routinely called (cf. Dio 57.8.1f.). He made no protest when the equivalent honorific ‘‘Augusta’’ was conferred on his mother Livia at the command of the late Princeps; Augustus ‘‘adopted’’ her in his will so that she might also become a Julia.
But down the family with Tiberius’ sons, respectively by adoption and natural, Germanicus and Drusus, and with their sons, the earlier pattern for Gaius and Lucius naturally continued. The fact that the cognomen could be borne only by males, along with the comparative scarcity of males in the imperial agnatic family, helped to make the designation distinctive. it indicated a member of the family who was a potential Augustus, or who already was one, and this distinctiveness was opening the way to its emergence as a title. the senatorial decree of AD 20 passed in the aftermath of the trial of Cn. Piso (l. 165) mentions ‘‘the name of Caesar, which brings health to this city and to the Empire of the Roman People.’’
When Caligula was killed in AD 41 his uncle and successor Ti. Claudius Nero had no claim to the name - but took it anyway, and with no sign of an enactment (Romans were relatively untrammeled in their choice of names). He could claim to be acting from respect for his brother Germanicus and (more relevantly) to keep the great name alive. For him, ‘‘Augustus’’ denoted his position as Princeps, while ‘‘Caesar’’ carried his entitlement to it and is omitted from only two of the 58 inscriptions alluding to Claudius that are recorded in H. Dessau’s Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae. Claudius helped to develop the cognomen into a title, but it still functioned in the old way when he adopted L. Domitius Ahenobarbus as Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus.
It was open to the successors of the Julio-Claudians after Nero’s death in 68 to take the name or not, though they did not have the claim of kinship that Claudius could deploy through his grandmother Octavia. The pull of habitual and resonant use in the dynasty from the incumbent emperor downwards was very strong. The designation was accepted by Galba and in 69 perhaps by his adopted heir of a few days, L. Piso, though that depends on a restoration of the Acts of the Arval Brothers. Certainly Otho, something of an admirer of Nero, styled himself Imperator M. Otho Caesar Augustus. Vitellius at first eschewed both ‘‘Augustus’’ and ‘‘Caesar’’ in favor of ‘‘Germanicus’’; he took ‘‘Augustus’’ when he entered Rome on 18 July, and ‘‘Caesar’’ only in the month before his downfall (Tac. Hist. 3.58.3). It evidently still had a pull, perhaps for the military, and Vitellius lacked military skills of his own. From that time on every Emperor was a Caesar, and Justin (41.6.8) was to use ‘‘Caesar’’ and ‘‘Augustus’’ as parallels to the Parthian royal designation ‘‘Arsaces.’’
Liberated from its role as a cognomen of the first dynasty, ‘‘Caesar’’ was free to move from one part ofa Princeps’ titulature to another. When in August 69 Vespasian began styling himself Imp. Caesar Vespasianus Augustus his elder son became T. Caesar Vespasianus (different orderings are found, but they are unofficial). The name had changed its position back to that of a gentilicium, giving a powerful echo of the first emperor’s Imp. Caesar Augustus. As Emperor (79-81), Titus was Imp. T. Caesar Vespasianus. Caesar Domitianus substituted his personal cognomen, omitting the plebeian Vespasianus and becoming Imp. Caesar Domitianus Augustus on his accession in 81. ‘‘Caesar’’ was now sealed in the imperial titulature, shifting position only slightly with Imp. Nerva Caesar Augustus (96-8); a modest person may have thought it presumptuous to open his titulature with Flavian assertiveness and added ‘‘Caesar Augustus’’ to his name as a title. It reverted with Imp. Caesar Nerva Traianus Augustus (98-117), Imp. Caesar Traianus Hadrianus Augustus (117-38), and so on.
Under Antoninus Pius there was a novelty and further removal from the role of cognomen. The first son since Titus to become heir apparent to an Emperor, L. Ceionius Commodus, was adopted by Hadrian in 136 and became L. Aelius Caesar, taking the requisite nomen and significant cognomen of the incumbent emperor. Nerva had hastily ‘‘adopted’’ the absent Trajan in 97, rather perhaps as Galba had hastily ‘‘adopted’’ Piso in Rome; during the months before taking over sole power Trajan had not used the name of Caesar. But there is no reason why Hadrian should not have gone through the proper forms of adoption; indeed, the Historia Augusta notes the entry into Hadrian’s family. It was as if another L. Domitius Ahenobarbus became Nero Claudius Caesar; but Ceionius did not have to change his original praenomen. Exactly the same was done, when the time came in 138, for T. Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Antoninus (later Pius). By 136 Hadrian was already in poor health. All that could be must be done for his heirs. When Antoninus came to power ‘‘Caesar’’ was moved into the original Augustan and now traditional position for the Princeps: he became Imp. Caesar T. Aelius Hadrianus. Another pair of adoptions had been carried out early in 138, when Hadrian was still alive, by Antoninus (Pius) himself: M. Annius Verus, the later Emperor M. Aurelius, became only M. Aurelius Aelius Verus, and was not ‘‘Caesar’’; nor was his adoptive brother, born in 130 as L. Ceionius Commodus, who, as the son of L. Aelius Caesar, became L. Aelius Aurelius Commodus in 136. The title, evidently from these events now exclusively a mark of status, was conferred on the older brother only in 139 after the accession of Pius: M. Aurelius Caesar Augusti Pii filius (Aelius, going back to the unloved Hadrian, could be dropped). Significantly, the younger brother was not a Caesar until in 161 he also became Augustus at Marcus’ behest as Imp. Caesar L. Aurelius Verus. The definitive change in the nature of‘‘Caesar’’ is also shown by the nomenclature of two of M. Aurelius’ sons: L. Aurelius Commodus and M. Annius Verus, born after the Emperor acceded, did not become Caesars until October 12, 166, when they were respectively five and three or four years old, with the title appended to their existing names (HA Marc. 12.7f., Comm. 11.13, cf. 1.10). When Commodus became his father’s full colleague in 177 he metamorphosed from L. Aurelius Commodus Caesar to Imp. (Caesar) ... Augustus.
By now political color had been bleached out of the designation, and as a status indicator it was not only a pseudo-praenomen for the incumbent ruler but a pseudocognomen for an intended heir (the Caesar). When Marcus Aurelius admonished himself in his Meditations not to be ‘‘Caesarified’’ he did not have Julius in mind, but the conduct of a whole series of emperors (M. Aur. Med. 6.30.1). For the emperor the title Augustus should have made ‘‘Caesar’’ redundant but for the fact that it was entrenched and so seemed indispensable; for the heir it was essential. The idea was so thoroughly accepted by the end of the Antonine age and of the dynasty that gave it that name that, although the short-lived Imp. Caesar Helvius Pertinax Augustus refused the title for his son in 193, it nonetheless appeared on inscriptions and even coins. In this case the designation had been offered by the Senate (HA Pert. 6.9), translating it from the private domain into that of public and court protocol. Further confirmation followed: without even adopting him (for he had two sons of his own) Imp. Caesar Septimius Severus Pertinax raised D. Clodius Albinus, the governor of Britain, to the rank of Caesar (Dio 74.15.1); he was to be an heir, and Albinus hopefully assumed the name Septimius between his own nomen and cognomen. The Historia Augusta has it that Commodus had already granted him ‘‘the imperium of a Caesar’’ (Caesareanum) (HA Sev. 6.9; Clod. 2.2-5); this is surely a fiction, but the conception shows how the ‘‘Caesarship’’ developed, at any rate by the time of the Historia Augusta. When the time came to destroy Albinus in 195 Severus raised his elder son, (L.) Septimius Bassianus, to Caesar as M. Aurelius Antoninus, the name he had filched from the Antonine dynasty in a fictitious ‘‘adoption.’’ Such elevations were performed with ceremony: that of the younger son P. Septimius Geta to Caesar in 197 was celebrated alongside that of his elder brother to Augustus. We catch another glimpse of one route to the title, by a senatorial decree made in this case in response to a popular and military demand, in the account of the life of Gordian III given by the Historia Augusta. When Maximus and Balbinus were declared Emperors in 238 and proceeded to the Rostra, the people of Rome, along with soldiers who had gathered, set up a cry of ‘‘We all ask for Gordian as Caesar!’’ The 14-year-old was hurried off and a decree was passed on the very same day; Gordian was brought into the House and hailed as Caesar (HA Max. etBalb. 3.3-5). Elsewhere, however, the language in which the appointments are couched suggests unilateral action by the incumbent emperor, who may have been away from Rome, that is, by edict; the Senate would of course show its acquiescence by using the term.
The ossification of the heir’s title under Marcus Aurelius and Septimius Severus is clearly illustrated by the adjective that accompanied it, and which became standard: nobilissimus (‘‘most noble’’). It occurs again in 217 with Macrinus’ son M. Opellius Diadumenianus and with Severus Alexander on his adoption by Elagabalus and before his elevation to the purple in 222. According to the Historia Augusta Caesar was now a designation that could be conferred on an emperor’s father-in-law, specifically the ‘‘Macrinus’’ who was allegedly so honored by Alexander Severus (HA Alex. Sev. 49.3). The connection with a coming generation had been quite severed by the time this could happen (or be envisaged). The final development into tetrarchic practice, two senior Augusti seconded by two junior Caesars, was now quite natural. For the author of the Historia Augusta ‘‘Caesar’’ is the designation of men who are not regular emperors or usurpers; prematurely dead heirs, then (HA Macr. 1.1). The author’s mini-history of the designation (HA Aelius 2.2-5) distinguishes three ways it could be acquired: by will; the (in fact not quite applicable) case of Trajan; and the way he thinks it was conferred on Aelius Verus, which was, the author claims, ‘‘in almost the same manner as in our time Maximian and Constantius were declared Caesars by your Clemency (Diocletian) as on true sons of the Principes and designated heirs of your August Majesty.’’ This synopsis may be expanded. First came the Julian family cognomen (transferable to a cognate, Claudius); then its appropriation as agentilicium by Octavian, preceded by ‘‘Imperator,’’ and made available by the Flavians to more than one generation of the dynasty; next, resumption of the name as a pseudo-cognomen to be conferred at the ruler’s will exclusively on immediate heirs, adopted or not, and normally men in the next generation; the connotation that they were not yet ‘‘Augusti’’ (HA Ael. 1.1f.) was precisely what constituted the Tetrarchic system. But this practice of using ‘‘Caesar’’ essentially for men who were not the Emperors of Rome or Constantinople did not prevent Emperors down to Arcadius and Honorius (ILS 797 of 401/2) from exhibiting it as part of the formulaic ‘‘Imp. Caes.,’’ with diminishing frequency as more colorful titles took over, nor its derivatives ‘‘Tsar’’ and ‘‘Kaiser’’ from gracing the autocrats of Russia and Germany.
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