The October Horse

Alexandria, 48 BCE. Julius Caesar enters the dynastic conflict between Cleopatra and her brother after Pompey’s murder, binding Roman civil war to the future of Ptolemaic Egypt. He survives the Alexandrian campaign, defeats remaining republican armies in Africa and Spain, and returns to Rome with authority greater than any magistrate has previously possessed. Cleopatra’s presence and Caesar’s plans for reform intensify fears that permanent monarchy is replacing the Republic.

Brutus, Cassius and their allies assassinate Caesar on the Ides of March but fail to establish a stable government. Mark Antony, Caesar’s heir Octavian and Lepidus compete for his soldiers, name and political inheritance before joining in a new triumviral regime and its proscriptions. The struggle moves east to Philippi, where the armies of Brutus and Cassius make the republican cause’s final major military stand.