The Rise of Augustus Caesar and the Roman Empire He was the nineteen year old student who inherited a name and conquered a known world. While his great-uncle Julius Caesar was a man of the battlefield, this young heir was a master of the long game a strategist who dismantled a five hundred year old Republic to build an Empire that would endure for centuries. Born Gaius Octavius, he would die as Augustus, the "Revered One," having fundamentally altered the political geography of the Mediterranean

Born Gaius Octavius on September 23, 63 BCE, the future emperor came from a prosperous family in Velitrae, southeast of Rome. His mother Atia was Julius Caesar's niece, and when Caesar was assassinated in 44 BCE, the eighteen-year-old learned he had been adopted and named chief heir. Taking the name Gaius Julius Caesar, Octavian entered a brutal power struggle that saw him form the Second Triumvirate with Mark Antony and Lepidus. After disposing of Lepidus in 32 BCE and defeating Antony and Cleo