The final decades of the Roman Republic: For nearly a hundred years, the rival aristocratic cliques that dominated politics had been fighting each other for power. The newcomer Octavian, underestimated by many, fought ruthlessly and cruelly for sole rule. He was the nephew of Julius Caesar, who allied himself with Mark Antony after his assassination. Soon, these two, too, were fighting each other. Historians have called Octavian a "butcher." Yet, with the honorary name Augustus, "the Exalted," he went down in history as a peacetime emperor.

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