Cæsar

Cæsar, the title of the Roman emperors and of the heirs to the throne, was originally the name of a patrician family of the Julia gens, one of the oldest in the Roman state, claiming to be descended from Iulus, the son of Æneas. Octavian bore the name as the adopted son of the great Julius Cæsar, and handed it down to his own adopted son, Tiberius; after whom it was borne by Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. Although the Cæsarian family proper became extinct with Nero, the title of Cæsar was part of the style of the succeeding emperors, usually between Emperor and the personal name, as 'Imperator Cæsar Vespasianus Augustus.' When the emperor Hadrian adopted Ælius Verus (136), the latter was permitted to take the title of Cæsar; and from this time in the western, and afterwards also in the eastern, empire it was borne by the heir-apparent to the throne, while Augustus continued to be the exclusive name of the reigning emperor. It is hardly necessary to mention that the name reappears in the Czar (or Tsar) of Russia, in the Kaiser of the 'Holy Roman Empire' and the modern empire of Germany, and in the Kaisari-Hind or empress of Hindustan.