He was both, of course.
Explanation:He made Rome into the Empire it probably needed to be to continue to exist; the endless civil wars of the decades previous had not truly weakened the Republic’s borders, but they had resulted in Rome splitting into factions and substates repeatedly, and eventually if left unchecked this would have likely become permanent: there would have been several “Roman” states all bickering over the corpse of the Republic. So Augustus stabilized that situation, and created a system that would last well enough to endure the later civil wars, if barely, and last for five centuries.
But he also ruled completely and while following the forms of the Republic left no substance to them. Further, he made people enjoy that he was doing it, coercing and co-opting them into buying in to his new system. A long reign and massive personal will made this possible, but resulted in the end of much of what Rome had built up over the Republic. The idea that the Senate and People ruled the Empire persisted as a concept, given lip service, but it never re-emerged, and this was due to Augustus.
Tyrant and visionary, savior and destroyer, he was all of those things and much more.
