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

In 30 BCE, Egypt fell to Rome. Mark Antony and Cleopatra were defeated, and Alexandria—capital of the Hellenistic world—passed into Roman hands. The Republic was effectively over. One man now stood above all others. That man was Octavian, the future Augustus. Soon after entering Alexandria, Octavian requested to be taken to the Soma (or Sema)—the monumental mausoleum that held the preserved body of Alexander the Great. Ancient historians, including Suetonius, record what happened next. Octavian