One-man rule vanquished the pluralistic and competitive system of the Roman Republic in the first century BCE. The first emperor was Augustus Caesar (r. 31 BCE–14 CE), and the empire was originally established as hereditary in the Julio-Claudian dynasty he founded. Although Augustus attempted to conceal his despotic power with a show of homespun informality and respect for the Roman Senate, the governing body under the republic, the empire he founded was functionally a monarchy.