But Augustus' name was Caesar. He was adopted into the gens Julia by Caesar's will, and used the name Gaius Caesar throughout his life. Moreover, while not all emperors were Augusti they were, with few exceptions, all Caesars--new dynastic founders were quick to secure adoption into the family of the Caesars. In Latin literature the emperors were referred to more often than not simply as Caesar--specific emperors might be distinguished by separate names, but a writer who just referred to "Caesar" with no further explanation was talking about the person of the princeps. By the later empire the name had become a formalized title, held by the junior tetrachs, rather than strictly a family name, but this does not change the fact that the emperors were Caesars