Octavius, of whom I have been telling you how he became master of the world, lived till the year 14 A.D. (Anno Domini, or year of our Lord), that is, fourteen years from the date sometimes assigned to our Lord's birth. And now you may be puzzled, because you may remember that it is said in the Bible that a decree went out from Cæsar Augustus, about the time of Christ's birth, that all the world should be taxed. Cæsar Augustus, you see, as Master of the World! The explanation is that Cæsar Augustus and Octavius were one and the same person. He had been adopted as a {214} son by his great-uncle Julius Cæsar, and then had taken the name of Cæsar. Augustus was not a name, but a title, given by the Romans, just as one of the Pompeys, and also one of the Herods, was called Magnus, or the Great. Augustus means the August one--the Magnificent. I have said that Octavius was a prudent man. He showed his prudence in the way that he allowed Antony, who was imprudent, to do all kinds of foolish things before he set to work to crush his power. He was equally prudent in his dealing with Lepidus, his other rival. And after he had made an end of the power of these two, and was the greatest man in the world, he showed his prudence in refusing to claim any great title which might give any enemies at Rome a chance of saying that he was grasping at power and trying to rule like a despot, as Antony had done. No doubt he remembered what had happened to his great-uncle. So he maintained many of the forms of the republican government and many of the old titles of the officials of the government, but it was quite evident all the time that he had the real power, and it was not any less real because he did not make a big show of claiming it. No doubt the Romans were all the more ready to leave the real power in his hands on that account. When his old rival Lepidus died he took to himself the high office of Pontifex Maximus which he had allowed Lepidus to hold during his life. Before his death, having no son of his own at that time alive, he adopted, as the Roman law permitted, his step-son Tiberius as his colleague during his life and as his successor after his death; and the Romans fully approved of his doing so. Thus, when he died in A.D. 14, Tiberius succeeded him as ruler of Rome and of {215} the world. He had not extended the limits of the Roman power, but he had made that power far more secure both in the West and in the East. The _Pax Romana_ had become a far more real peace under him than it had been before.