Of course he did not declare himself as such. He battled his way to the top and pretended that the Republic still stood. His assassination, however, was not enough to stop the rise of the Empire.
After the smoke had cleared from the civil wars, Augustus Caesar emerged as sole emperor and there was little opposition.
At that point Rome entered the period of the Empire in which great wealth and military victories continued, but great decadence and corruption got worse. The city descended into increased sexual depravity, violence, reliance on government hand outs, laziness and addiction to entertainment and violent games. Homosexuality, abortion, infanticide, prostitution, murder, rebellion, adultery and total depravity continued to rise, and the consequences were disastrous.
One of the most destructive factors was young men’s attitude to responsibilities of marriage and civil life. The Roman young men refused to marry and have children. With free access to same sex relationships, pederasty and prostitutes what need have they of a wife and the encumbrance of children? Those who did marry limited the number of children, abortion methods were crude and women died if not in childbirth, then through botched abortions. Female children were killed. The number of eligible females declines. Family life fell apart further.
Emperor after emperor tried with tax breaks, grants and incentives to prop up the birth rate which was plummeting due to abortion, infanticide, plague and war. They bribed young men to marry and raise a family. It didn’t work. They faced a demographic winter and the barbarians invaded and took over Rome without a fight because there simply weren’t enough Romans left to fight.
Hello America and Europe! Does all this sound familiar?
Notice the immigrants flooding into Europe and America even now. Look at the attitudes of too many of our young men to marriage and family life. Look at our addiction to violent games, our social chaos and our sexual depravity.
Those who ignore the tragedies of history are bound to repeat them.