In 44 B.C.E., with the blood of Julius Caesar drying on the marble floor of the Roman Senate, the city that once ruled the known world stood on the brink of chaos.
The Republic, long constructed from decades of tradition, virtue and senatorial debate, was coming apart. But the tale of how Rome went from this crisis moment to the stable rule of an emperor is not one of swift conquest or violent domination.
It is a story of patience. Of psychology. About a young man who saw the world change under his feet and silently resolved to change it.
His name was Gaius Octavius-Octavian for pals, Augustus for posterity. Barely nineteen when his great-uncle and adoptive parent, Julius Caesar, was murdered, Octavian had no army, no extensive connections to the Senate and no legitimate claim to power.
What he possessed was something far more powerful: a near-superhuman sense of timing, an uncanny knack for reading people, and a gut instinct for when to strike-and when not to.