Well, welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history. On this episode, we are talking about Augustus Caesar.

This indeed is the Caesar who was ruling at the time of the birth of Christ, and what's fascinating about Augustus Caesar was that he

was the first Roman emperor to use a particular title and it was in fact his favorite title and in Latin the title is Divyphilius or we would say son of God or we would want to say son of a god

Augustus was the adopted son of Julius Caesar

and one of Julius Caesar's favorite title for himself

was Divine Julius. He considered himself to be descended from

the gods and a god on earth as it were Augustus, when he officially became part of Julius Caesar's family

through adoption, he took on that title, The Son of a God deviophilius. Now this was also a bit of a political strategy

for Augustus and not only did he take on this title, but while he was Caesar, he sent

likenesses and statues of himself throughout the Empire.

And in fact, because of the limitations of travel in that day and so forth, much more people, of course, would see his statues in his images than they would see him.

Well, the famous statue that he has of himself had certain characteristics

to it. He had it commissioned while he was middle-aged, but the image of himself is as a young man with ideal proportions he's perpetually

youthful and perfect in these statues his feet are bare and that was only used in the depictions of gods and goddesses

so he is connecting himself to the pantheon of gods for the Romans.

He's dressed in military garb and his arm is up as if he is addressing the people.

So he is their leader. He is their victorious military leader who is leading Rome through these

military endeavors and exploits and pursuits.

At his right leg on these statues typically is a Cupid riding a dolphin.

Now there's a double image there of course the dolphin represents

his victories at sea and the Cupid represents Venus and it's a way of

signifying that Augustus was descended from the goddess Venus herself.

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