The first Roman emperor, maker of the Pax Romana
The first emperor of the Roman Empire. After Caesar’s assassination he prevailed in long civil war, yet did not, like Caesar, flauntingly call himself king; instead he cannily kept the shell of the Republic — styling himself "princeps" (first citizen) — and gathered real power to himself bit by bit. The "principate" he founded brought Rome two centuries of the "Pax Romana." His genius was this: without abolishing the name of the old institutions, he wholly changed their substance — the concentration of power can be quietly accomplished under the signboard of "the Republic."
In his later years Augustus judged himself: "I found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble." This meant both his great building and beautifying of the city and, by metaphor, his remaking of a strife-torn republic into an orderly empire. He never openly called himself emperor, only "first citizen," accomplishing a high concentration of power by the least alarming means — a classic lesson in political history of "advancing by retreating."
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.