Augustus

The Augustus series follows Gaius Octavius from the assassination of Julius Caesar to the point at which Caesar’s heir can compete for control of Rome. The two novels place his personal development within the collapse of republican government, showing an inexperienced claimant learning to use adoption, veteran loyalty, public rhetoric and military force against older rivals.

Marcus Agrippa provides the continuity between political councils and campaigns, while Antony, Cicero, Brutus, Cassius and Cleopatra represent competing routes out of civil war. The sequence treats Augustus’s eventual supremacy as a contingent achievement rather than a foregone conclusion: each alliance solves an immediate danger but brings the heir closer to the concentration of power that will end the Republic.