Augusto

On the Ides of March in the year 44 BC, Julius Caesar was assassinated at the foot of the statue of Pompey. At the time, Octavian was nothing more than a dark teenager recently adopted by the first man in Rome. Faced with the assassination, he took a step forward and proclaimed himself his legitimate heir and successor. No one took him seriously; however, in a few months he formed an army and managed to rise as one of the three most powerful men of the moment with Marco Antonio and Lepidus. During the following decade his authority was consolidated while Antony failed in the East and fell into the arms of Cleopatra. Octavio, confident in his strength, attacked his old ally and defeated him. In 31 BC, now without rivals, he became the first emperor, ending the Republic forever. And so Octavian was renamed Augustus and Rome became an empire. A consummate manipulator, propagandist, and master of theatrics, Augustus could be impulsive and emotional, ruthless and generous. He expected his family and friends to play the roles he had assigned them, so he exiled his daughter and her grandson when they didn't fit the script. His was a government full of contradictions, which is why his personality is difficult to grasp. In this new biography, Adrian Goldsworthy -as he already did to address the figure of Julius Caesar- relies exclusively on ancient sources to treat in detail the existence of the emperor and shed new light on the man and his time.