When did modern historians start referring to Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus as Octavian rather than Caesar?
I think during the Illuminist Era (18th cent.), when historians became more specific in their studies, to better fill in their Encyclopedia entries. Octavian means eighth son, and such a specification means that he wasn’t emperor yet, because he never became a formal emperor (like his uncle), but an informal one, i.e. summed in his hands many different republican powers, obtaining at the end (by the senate) the title of augustus (the latin for great, like alexander the great). at the end of his life he said: the comedy has ended..
