Ahve, and welcome to Emperor of Rome, a podcast about the rulers of the ancient Roman Empire.

I'm your host, Matt Smith, and with me as always is Dr.

Rianna Evans, a lecturer in ancient Mediterranean studies at Latrobe University.

This is episode XL. What is an Emperor Redux?

I want you to think about the time that has been spanned in the last XL

podcasts of Emperor's of Rome, so say from when Julius Caesar became dictator in 49 BCE, right up until when

Demission was assassinated 150 years later.

In that period of time we've seen Rome gone from a republic to essentially back to being a monarchy in everything but name.

So what is an emperor now?

How has it changed and what does it mean to hold this power?

Here's Rianna Evans.

Augustus was the first emperor of Rome.

Why wasn't Caesar an emperor?

And would he have liked to have been an emperor?

Julius Caesar wasn't an emperor. He wasn't the

pre-kepts, the first man in Rome, which is what the Romans called, the people we call

emperors, because he didn't have all of those

powers invested in him. He was a dictator he had a Republican role but he didn't

have imperium he didn't have imperium, he didn't have the kind of authority that Augustus has.

So it's quite complicated question to answer. Also, failed of course in that he was

assassinated but then as we've seen some of our emperors are assassinated so that's

not the defining principle. I think Caesar still saw himself in the Republican mold.

...