Augustus transformed the unruly Roman Republic into the greatest empire the world had ever seen. He laid the foundation for all of western history to follow. Yet despite Augustus’s accomplishments very few biographers have concentrated on the man himself, instead choosing to chronicle the age in which he lived.
Here Anthony Everitt gives a spell-binding and intimate account of his illustrious subject. As a teenager the inexperienced Augustus was plucked from his studies to take centre stage in the drama of Roman politics. His rise to power began with the assassination of his great uncle and adoptive father, Julius Caesar, and culminated in the titanic duel with Mark Antony.
The world that made Augustus – and that he himself remade – was driven by intrigue, sex, ceremony, violence, scandal and naked ambition. Here some of the household names of history – Caesar, Cato, Brutus, Cassius, Antony and Cleopatra - are turned into flesh-and-blood human beings.
Anthony Everitt was Deputy Secretary-General of the Arts Council of Great Britain from 1985 to 1990 and Secretary-General from 1990 to 1994. Formerly he was Visiting professor of the Visual and Performing Arts at Nottingham Trent University. His fascination with ancient Rome began when he studied classics at school. He is the author of Cicero, a Turbulent Life; Augustus, The Life of Rome’s First Emperor; Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome; The Rise of Rome; The Rise of Athens; Alexander the Great and, with his co-author Roddy Ashworth, SPQR, A Roman Miscellany and Nero, Matricide, Music ...
More about Anthony Everitt