Augustus: Birth of an Empire

## The Death of a Dictator On the Ides of March, 44 BCE, the marble floors of Pompey's Theater ran red with blood. Julius Caesar, Dictator of Rome, lay dead at the foot of his rival's statue, his body pierced by twenty-three dagger wounds. Among the stunned onlookers who would soon hear of this violent deed was Caesar's eighteen-year-old great-nephew and adopted son, Gaius Octavius. The young man was far from Rome, completing his military training in Apollonia when the news reached him. His mother's urgent letter warned him to flee, to renounce his adoption and inheritance, to save himself from Caesar's fate. But the youth who would one day be known as Augustus had other plans. In the growing darkness of his quarters, Octavius made a decision that would alter the course of history. Despite his tender age and relative inexperience, he would return to Rome. He would claim his inheritance. He would avenge his adopted father. And in doing so, he would transform a republic into an empire....