From Republic to Empire: The Roman Civil War 44 B.C. - 27 B.C.

Julius Caesar may have been the noblest Roman of them all, but it was in death, not in life, that he forged a new epoch. The Ides of March marked the end of the Republic; and the civil wars that followed it prepared the way for the Empire of Peace under Octavian (Caesar Augustus). This book is a reprint of the first four chapters of Volume X of the Cambridge Ancient History, published in 1934. It remains one of the most insightful studies of the period of unrest that broke out in Rome after the murder of Caesar and continued until the defeat and death of Antony 14 years later. A true collaboration, the chapters were written jointly by M.P. Charlesworth, who was responsible for the sections on Italy and the West, and Sir William Tarn, who dealt with the East. Filled with vivid portrayals, notably Charlesworth's study of Octavian and Tarn's depiction of Cleopatra, the book explains in a readable narrative style the sequence of events that led up to the formation of the Roman Empire.