January 16- Octavius becomes Augustus

On January 16^th, three very different rulers of three very different ages, finally assumed the positions and titles the have come to be known under.

On January 16^, 27 BC, Gaius Octavius Caesar, nephew and heir of the great Gaius Julius, was given the titles �Princeps� and �Augustus� by the grateful Roman Senate, thereby recognising the true constellation of power in the state..

After the defeat of his greatest rival Marcus Antonius, and thus the end of decades of civil wars in the republic, Octavius had been in some kind of political dilemma. On the one hand his alleged intentions throughout the struggles against his enemy, whom he had accused of trying to establish a semi-oriental despotic kingdom, had been the restoration of the old Republican constitution in Rome, which would forbid him to assume dictatorial powers. On the other hand we was neither willing to give up his virtual reign over the Roman Empire, nor did he regard his work in restoring peace and securing the gains of the Republic as finished.

The� first settlement� of 27 BC was thus a cleverly designed compromise that cemented Octavius� authority in Rome without offending the ancient traditions of the Republic too much. �Augustus� , meaning � regal, excellent�� was a purely honorific title, created for Octavius, something that declared him an object of reverence, �Princeps�, meaning the �first of� was a title that been used before, very sparingly however, but both in combination created an unheard of precedence. Together with an equally cleverly assembled combination of constitutional powers, Octavius thereby remained the de-facto ruler of Rome and its provinces.

Thus Octavius became Augustus, who was to reign under this name for another 13 years, and created an unrivalled period of peace and prosperity in the old Republic, the �Pax Augusta�

Gaius Octavius Caesar, "Augustus"

The second one was Abd-ar-Rahman III, who on this day in 929 assumed the title �Caliph of Cordoba�, thereby declaring the independence of Muslim Spain from the Caliphates of Arabia.

Up till then, the Umayyad potentates of Spain, had been known by the title of �Sultan�, whilst �Caliph� was being reserved for the rulers of the Arabian heartlands, and in the 10^th century it was claimed, amongst others, by the Fatimid dynasty of Egypt. After years of constant struggles against the Fatimids, Abd-ar-Rahman III finally secured the autonomy of his territories, and by proclaiming himself �Caliph� strengthened Arabic rule on the Iberian peninsula for a century, until after the fall of the last of his successors, the slow decline began.

The third one was no other than Stalin's most favourite predecessor as ruler of Russia,

Ivan the Terrible, who on this day in 1547 was crowned �Tsar of Russia� in Moscow. His ancestors had simply been known as �Grand Dukes of Moscow�, but Ivan apparently decided to assume a more grandiose title, not only to demonstrate his claim over a realm that had grown much larger than the surroundings of his capital, and would do further under his reign, but also to lay claim to a political and spiritual ancestry that was much older than his country. After the demise of the Byzantine Empire a hundred years before his coronation, Ivan seemingly felt now strong enough and chosen to inherit both the political heirloom of the East-Roman Empire, and to relocate the spiritual leadership of Orthodox Christianity to Russia. The deliberate choice of the Russian variant of the old Roman title �Caesar� made his ambitions more than clear.

What else happened on this day?

2006 A fire in the centre of The Hague completely destroys a local primary school (no casualties), and causes the entire neighbourhood to be evacuated, thus preventing yours truly of returning to his flat and posting his article for this day in history. 

Complete list:

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_16