After Julius Caesar’s assassination, his adopted son Octavian vowed to avenge him. Forming the Second Triumvirate with Mark Antony and Lepidus, he crushed Caesar’s killers at Philippi, then turned on Antony and Cleopatra, defeating them at Actium to end Rome’s civil wars. Now the undisputed ruler of Rome, Octavian took the title Augustus, transforming the fractured Republic into the Roman Empire. His reign brought the Pax Romana, an age of peace and power, fulfilling Caesar’s legacy and began a