Addressing the Emperor

[Nathan Ross]

I knew the emperors took 'Caesar' as a name, but I thought using it to address them was a sort of Hollywood-ism. I didn't realise it was actually true.

They did, although how common it was compared to dominus or imperator I don't know. The context might have been important too (and direct v indirect address?). In Suetonius's Domitian there's this anecdote:

"At the beginning of his reign [Domitian] used to spend hours in seclusion every day, doing nothing but catch flies and stab them with a keenly-sharpened stylus. Consequently when someone once asked whether anyone was in there with Caesar, Vibius Crispus made the witty reply: 'Not even a fly'."

(...ut cuidam interroganti, essetne quis intus cum Caesare, non absurde responsum sit a Vibio Crispo, ne muscam quidem)

Then there's Florus's epigram to Hadrian, Ego nolo Caesar esse:

"I don't want to be Caesar, to stroll among the Britons, and endure the Scythian frosts"

I always assumed that Caesar referred to the heir, and Augustus was the name used by the emperors.

Caesar and Augustus were both used by the early emperors, as far as I know, although there does seem to have been a sense that Augustus was the superior title. Later it was structured further, until the development of the imperial 'college' under Diocletian, by which time Caesar was definitely the junior, as you say.