Augustus
Augustus' reign laid the foundations of a regime that lasted, in one form or another, for nearly fifteen hundred years through the ultimate decline of the Western Roman Empire and until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Both his adoptive surname, Caesar, and his title "Augustus" became the permanent titles of the rulers of the Roman Empire for fourteen centuries after his death, in use both at Old Rome and at New Rome. In many languages, "Caesar" became the word for "Emperor", as in the German "Kaiser" and in the Bulgarian and subsequently Russian "Tsar" (sometimes Csar or Czar). The cult of "Divus Augustus" continued until the state religion of the Empire was changed to Christianity in 391 by Theodosius I. Consequently, there are many excellent statues and busts of the first emperor. He had composed an account of his achievements, the "Res Gestae Divi Augusti", to be inscribed in bronze in front of his mausoleum. Copies of the text were inscribed throughout the Empire upon his death. The inscriptions in Latin featured translations in Greek beside it, and were inscribed on many public edifices, such as the temple in Ankara dubbed the "Monumentum Ancyranum", called the "queen of inscriptions" by historian Theodor Mommsen.
Roman conquest of the Iberian peninsula
Augustus took the command in 26 BC, the fourth year of the war. He left Rome in 27 BC. There were rumours that he was going to conquer Britannia to perform a great military feat. Instead, he undertook the reorganisation of Gallic provinces that had been left largely unsupervised since their conquest by Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars (58–50 BC). He might have seen the war in next door Hispania as a chance for military glory. He reached Tarraco (Tarragona) in eastern Hispania in 27 BC, but he arrived in the area too late for fighting before winter set in. In terms of personal propaganda these wars became his war, even though he fought only one campaign. In 25 BC, he retired to Tarraco due to illness. Cassius Dio wrote that he fell ill from over-exertion and anxiety. González Echegaray, places the involvement of Augustus in the political context of his task of delineating and defending the frontiers of the Roman Empire after the Roman civil wars. After the conquest of Gaul there was no more room for expansion and there was the task defence from attacks of the borders in Europe in the face of a reduction in size of the Roman army. In an economic context there was the question of control over the rich gold mine at Las Medullas (the richest in the empire) in Asturia and the abundant iron ores of Cantabria. Towards the end of the Roman Civil Wars there was a shortage of gold and silver.