The book I read to research this post was Augustus Son of Rome by Richard Foreman which is a very good book which I bought from Kindle. This book has been well researched but is historical fiction so some of the more minor details are made up. Many people regard Augustus or Gaiais as the greatest roman emperor. Certainly the roman empire was huge in his reign although it didn’t include britain. Augustus was quite bookish and more of a tactician than a warrior. When he and Mark Antony took on the armies of Brutus and Cassius, the murderers of Julius Caesar, Mark led their army into battle because he was the better soldier. In the book his teacher belittles him so he overcomes the teacher by throwing sand in his face and then attacking him. I recently rented both tv series of Rome the first series of which was about Julius Caesar and the second was about Augustus. An interesting fact is after he died he was declared a god and one of his laws was sedition or blasphemy which was punishable by crucifixtion and due to his status it was impossible to repeal the law or change the sentence. This state of affairs lasted for hundreds of years. He was well respected by his army because he took an interest in his men and he knew a little bit about most trades so he had something he could talk to practically anyone about. When the roman army had to choose whether to side with him or the senate they chose him. Him and Mark Antony divided the empire in half with Mark ruling the eastern half and having a relationship with Cleopatra. Augustus cut off supplies to Marks army and defeated his fleet of ships. Mark killed himself and Cleopatra knew she would be treated as a slave and dragged through the streets of Rome so she allowed an asp, a poisonous snake to bite her and died.