Augustus

CHAPTER 6 · 44 BC–AD 14 · The Rise and Fall of Rome, 264 BC – AD 476

Caesar’s will adopts his 18-year-old great-nephew Octavian — a sickly student with no army, facing Antony, the assassins, and the Senate, all of whom underestimate him precisely once. Watch the arrows: at Philippi (42) he and Antony destroy Brutus and Cassius after proscriptions at home kill hundreds — Cicero first — and fund the armies with the victims’ estates; then the victors split the world, Antony taking the rich east, where he pairs his fortunes with Cleopatra VII, the last, formidable Ptolemy. The decade of cold war that follows is won as much by narrative as by ships: Octavian frames

The turn: Actium, 2 September 31 BC.

This chapter is one scene of an interactive atlas: the map repaints as the dates advance, campaigns draw themselves, and every chapter argues its causes and consequences — then a field exam asks you to prove it on the map.