AUGUSTUS, the appellation conferred upon Cæsar Octavianus, the first Roman emperor. Its etymology is not quite certain, but the Greeks always translate it by Σεβαστός, "the Venerable." He was the son of C. Octavius by Atia, a daughter of Julia, the sister of C. Julius Cæsar. An account of his life is given under the article ROMAN HISTORY. The obscure name Octavius, as Gibbon observes, he derived from a mean family in the little town of Aricia. It was stained with the blood of the proscription; and he was desirous, had it been possible, to erase all memory of his former life. The illustrious surname of Cæsar he assumed as the adopted son of the dictator, for which reason his name Octavius also was changed into Octavianus;
but he had too much good sense either to hope to be confounded, or to wish to be compared, with that extraordinary man. It was proposed in the senate to dignify their minister with a new appellation; and, after a very serious discussion, that of Augustus was chosen from among several others, as being the most expressive of the character of peace and sanctity which he uniformly affected. Augustus was therefore a personal, Cæsar a family distinction. The title of Augustus, which should naturally have expired with the prince on whom it was bestowed, continued to be reserved for the monarch; while the name of Cæsar was more freely conferred on his relations, and, from the reign of Hadrian at least, became appropriated to the second person in the state, who was considered the presumptive heir of the empire. Nero was the last prince who could allege any hereditary claim to the honours of the Julian line. But at his death the practice of a century had inseparably connected the appellation with the imperial dignity, and it has been preserved by a long succession of emperors, Romans, Greeks, Franks, and Germans, to the present time.
AULA is used by Spelman for a court-baron, as by Tacitus and Suetonius for courtiers generally. In some old ecclesiastical writers it signifies the nave of a church, and sometimes a courtyard.