Caesar

Family name of Julius Caesar and later an imperial title. Julius Caesar's grand-nephew and adopted son Octavius became Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (the future emperor Augustus). From his day onwards, ‘Caesar’ became the family name of the reigning emperor and his heirs. When the emperor Nero, the last of the Julio-Claudian line, died, all his successors from Galba onwards were called ‘Caesar’. What had been a family name thus became a title.

As time passed, ‘Caesar’ became the title of an emperor's chosen deputy and/or heir, marking him out as second only to the emperor, who had the title ‘Augustus’. The titles ‘tsar’ in Russia and ‘kaiser’ in Germany were both dreived from the name Caesar.

The family of the Julii Caesares were a branch of the patrician Julia gens (a number of aristocratic families with the same name descending from a common ancestor).