no intention of being stabbed…

It was the ultimate triumph of spin over reality – Octavian, now renamed Augustus, had seen the fate of Julius Caesar (his adoptive father), when he appeared to his contemporaries to be a dictator, almost a king. Augustus had no intention of being stabbed on the steps of any entertainment venue, so he cloaked his power with egalitarian names. He wasn’t a dictator; he didn’t have ideas above his station. He was simply princeps senatus – the chief man of the senate. He was primus inter pares – the first among equals; it would be almost 2,000 years before George Orwell’s pigs recognised the powerful truth behind this idea: some animals really were more equal than others. Augustus wasn’t trying to be king; he had no more power than any elected official might have. He just had the power of all the elected officials rolled into one: he became the first Roman emperor.

Natalie Haynes – The Ancient Guide to Modern Life