After defeating Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 BC, Octavian was the only power left in the Roman world. He was careful not to repeat Caesar's mistakes.
In 27 BC he announced that he was handing the Republic back to the Senate and the people. The grateful Senate gave him the name Augustus, "the revered one", and asked him to keep command of most of the armies.
He called himself only princeps, the first citizen. But from then until his death in AD 14, Augustus held power over everything that mattered, and the Roman Empire had begun.
All episodes of From Republic to Empire
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1
Crossing the Rubicon
1 min read
January 49 BC: a general reaches a small river and makes a choice there is no coming back from.
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2
The Ides of March
1 min read
15 March 44 BC: the dictator for life walks into a meeting of the Senate.
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3
Augustus, the First Emperor
1 min read
He never called himself king, yet he ruled Rome for forty years.
