Real Dictators - Augustus Part 1: Rome’s First Emperor

Episode Date: September 8, 2026

On the Ides of March 44BC, Julius Caesar is murdered in the Senate. With Rome’s long-time dictator deposed, the would-be inheritors of his estate and offices begin jostling for position. But as it turns out, Caesar has had other ideas. Remarkably, his somewhat obscure great-nephew, Octavian, is named as his heir. In time, Octavian will come to wield absolute power over the greatest dominion of classical civilisation. He’ll be the first and perhaps greatest Roman emperor. We know him today by the honorary name bestowed upon him: Imperator Caesar Augustus… A Noiser podcast production. Narrated by Paul McGann. Featuring Lauren Ginsberg, David Gwynn, Neville Morley, Joyce Tyldesley. This is Part 1 of 3. Written by Jeff Dawson | Assistant Producer: Luke Lonergan | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound supervisors: Tom Pink, Matt Peaty | Sound design & audio editing by George Tapp | Assembly editing by Dorry Macaulay | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cian Ryan-Morgan | Recording engineer: Joseph McGann. You can listen to the final two episodes of the Augustus story straight after this, without waiting and without ads, by joining Noiser+. Just click the subscription banner at the top of the feed or go to noiser.com/subscriptions Limited time: download Supremacy: World War 3 for free via our link and get an exclusive Elite Bomber Seasonal Unit worth $25 - but only for the next 30 days: https://con.onelink.me/kZW6/6wtag9jg Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The year is 44 BC. It's the 15th of March, a Wednesday, just before 11 a.m. We're in Rome, the biggest, most bustling metropolis in the known world. It's a fine spring morning, sunny. There's an air of optimism. And, strolling through the crowds towards the Senate, the seat of government, comes one Gaius Julius Caesar. Caesar is a popular man. The public greets him warm. Though head of the Roman state, its autocratic ruler, he retains that common touch. Aged 55 now, Caesar still has the vigour of someone 20 years his junior. As a statesman, scholar and soldier, not to mention lover, he is the celebrity to top all celebrities.

As a warrior, he's the greatest Roman general who ever lived, which is quite some accolade. As a politician, he's brought order where once there was chaos. He has, as one might put it, made the chariots run on time. But not all are so infused. Caesar has rivals in the Senate, a conservative faction known as the Optimates. They object to what they see as his rampant megalomania, sitting there in his golden throne with his crown of laurel leaves, Lording it over the Senate, ruling by decree.

In their view, Julius Caesar is guilty of breaking the ultimate taboo for the Roman Republic. He is behaving like a king. And so, a plot has been hatched by senior senators, a conspiracy. To save the Republic, to save Rome, Caesar must be eliminated. Last night, Caesar went out to dinner. As the wine flowed, he had seemed in good spirits. But into the early hours his wife Calpania had tossed and turned. Her sleep played with nightmares, visions of cradling her dying husband in her arms.

This morning, as Caesar donned his purple robe, another royal pretension, she had begged him to stay off work, to cry off sick. She reminded Caesar of a recent consultation with his harrispects, his son. soothsayer. Didn't he recall the old man's prophecy? Beware the aides of March. Against Calponia's protestations, Caesar strolls through the crowd, past the giant new forum being constructed in his honor. A Greek scholar named Artemidorus pushes his way forward. He hands Caesar a note, a warning, rumors of an assassination plot. But, amid the celebrity scrum, Caesar passes it to an attendant.

Basking in the adulation of his people, what more could he want? As he enters the Senate chamber, the conspirators eye each other nervously. Someone waylays Mark Anthony, Caesar's co-consul, keeping him away from proceedings. Caesar is greeted warmly by Brutus,

an old prodigé, and led to his golden throne. A senator then approaches, His name is Lucius Tilius Simba. He is petitioning Caesar for clemency for the safe return to Rome of his exiled brother. But it's pure distraction, a means for the conspirators to gather around. Little this Caesar know that they have daggers hidden in the folds of their togas. On an agreed sign, Simba yanks down the shoulder of Caesar's robe.

A senator called Casca slashes at his neck, though he makes a meal of it, merely grazing. Caesar looks up, dumbfounded. When he realizes that Casca has drawn blood, he whips out his sharp stylus pen and jabs it into his assailant's arm. But it's too late, someone else thrusts a dagger into Caesar's side. As a whirl of togas, of thrashing and slashing, and slashing. Some of the senators doing more damage to themselves than to their quarry. As the final 23rd assassin plunges in his blade, right into Caesar's groin, as a look of shock on the dictator's face.

It is none other than Brutus, Caesar's once loyal comrade, quite possibly, according to rumors, his own illegitimate son. Those dying words are almost certainly spoken in Greek, the language of the elites rather than Latin, not the et tu-brute of Shakespeare. Rather, with added poignancy, Kaisu-Teknon. You too, my child. Caesar staggers across the floor and collapses. His final motion is to pull up his robe, hiding his face.

From 400 miles away, across the Adriatic Sea lies Apollonia, a Greek trading settlement in what is modern-day Albania. In these tranquil surrounds there is a finishing school, a place for young Romans to polish up their maths, philosophy and oratory. An 18-year-old youth called Octavian sits attentively in class. But then, the sound of hooves on cobbles, getting closer. An exhausted messenger gallops his horse into the school's quadrangle. He staggers from his steed and draws a letter from his tunic. He presents it, arm outstretched to young Octavian. It contains stunning news.

Great Caesar is dead. He has been murdered in the Senate. The sudden assassination of his illustrious great uncle would be staggering enough in its own right. But there is more. He, Octavian, is now Caesar's heir. In addition, he has been adopted posthumously as his son, reeling. Octavian tries to comprehend the enormity of it all. But the messenger hastens him.

Come on, there is no time. Rome awaits. In an earlier season, we covered the life of Julius Caesar. His rise, his fall, his triumphs, his glories, his roots, his ruthless seizure of power. But that's only part one of a bigger story, one featuring much of the same cast, the same players. Its sequel, here, is a tale of unfinished business,

one of political struggle, of bloodshed, and above all, revenge, and of a man who will come to wield absolute power over the greatest dominion of classical civilization. the first and greatest Roman Emperor. We know him today by the honorary name that was bestowed upon him. Not Octavian, but Imperator Caesar Augustus. Augustus has a genuine claim to be the greatest political mastermind in the history of Western civilization. It's not actually an exaggeration. He is the architect of how a Roman emperor

should behave. He's the key success figure in the transition from the Roman Republic, to the Roman Empire, and he left a foundation that continued to dominate Europe for the next 400 years. I think the easiest way to say why Augustus is so important is that he changed the Roman world. He grew up in a Rome that was fractured by civil war, where killing fellow Romans was considered deeply normal, and rather than be horrified, he learned to use that chaos, the brutality, and often illegality to remake the world into something that he could control. We can look at Roman history more or less as falling into two hearts. There's the Republic and there's what we normally call the Principate,

sometimes confusingly called the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire also means the territory they conquer. The Principate is about one man who is pretty well unchecked in his power. This man, the emperor, the Princetz, is absolutely it. You couldn't have a more authoritarian dictator-like form of government. He is arguably the most successful dictator in the history of the Western world, and that's mainly because, of course, he didn't use the title dictator. From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is part one of the Augustus story,

and this is real dictator. I'm Julie Andrews, and it is my great pleasure to return to Jane Austen Stories. This time I'll be reading another beloved classic Emma. Join me as we step into the village of Highbury, home to the handsome and clever Emma Woodhouse. But as new visitors arrive and quiet mysteries unfold, what will our strong-willed heroine learn, both of the secrets of others and of her own heart's desires. Listen to Jane Austen's stories now wherever you get your podcasts. This September on the Noiser Podcast Network.

On Jane Austen stories, Dame Julie Andrews continues to bring Austin's beloved classic Emma to life. On short history of, we're in medieval England for the fascinating story of the Peasants' Revolt, and 25 years on from 9-11, we're on the ground in New York City. On real survival stories, we're on a luscious winery in northwest America and venturing into a missile silo in the dead of night as the US is threatened with nuclear disaster. And in Sherlock Holmes short stories, get two episodes each week as Hugh Bonneville explores Conan Doyle's great novel,

A Study in Scarlet. Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus. It's 63 BC, almost 19 years earlier, We're in a villa on the Palatine Hill, one of Rome's famous seven. It's home to a man named Gaius Octavius and his family. The house is comfortable, not flash, the kind of residence befitting Gaius' status, that of a skilled administrator, someone who will serve for a while as the governor of Macedonia. He's descended from the Octavi clan, or Jens Octavia.

their progenitor way back when would have been either the eighth child or born in the eighth month Gaius is not a patrician, not a man of inherited wealth or status. He is rather a novice homo, a new man. He's a member of what's known as the equestrians, the strata of middle class, which is rising in influence within Roman society, named after their one-time proliferation within the Roman cavalry, pointedly obliged to provide their own horses. David Gwynne is a reader in ancient and late antique history

at Royal Holloway University of London. This is a class that emerged originally in the second century BC in the Roman Republic. They're socially below the level of the Senate, but they become marked out as a separate block of society. because they're generating wealth. Above all, particularly actually through trade, through industry, and successful equestrians can begin to reach the senatorial order. In today's terms, the equestrians are what you would call self-made men,

the merchants, the bankers, the property developers, the bureaucrats, the people who make Rome tick. Only Rome has been ticking barely intermittently of late. Racked by decades of civil wars led by a pull. opposing generals, such as Marius and Sulla, not to mention the slave revolt led by an ex-gladiator named Spartacus, Rome seems in a permanent state of turmoil. Up in the hills, Gaius Octavius and his family are removed from the daily argy-bargy of the streets, something which is becoming unbearable. Where most cities can measure their populations in the tens of thousands,

Rome's is already pushing a million, swelled by migrants from the new territories it's acquired around the Mediterranean. Staggeringly, slaves now make up 40% of the total. Without the infrastructure to cope, there is pollution, disease, congestion, fire, regular flooding from the River Tiber, inadequate housing, and, yes, crime.

As such, the family. family Octavius is contemplating a move. The paternal family were never metropolitan Romans. They hail originally from sleepy velitre, today's veletri, about 30 miles to the south. Though they will stay put for the moment. For on the 23rd of September that year, comes into the world a baby boy, the family's first son. He will, as tradition dictates, be given the same name as his father. Gaius Octavius. His birth has been given a bit of retrospective gloss. The writer Suetonius describes his mother Atia,

entering the temple of Apollo around the time of the baby's conception. It is there, after falling into a deep sleep, during which she dreams of a serpent, that she awakes to find a snake-like mark upon her body. Could Apollo himself be the boy's true father? Lauren Ginsberg is Associate Professor of Classical Studies and Theatre Studies at Duke University. So one of the maddening things about being an ancient historian is the state of ancient historical evidence. So we have our major what we call literary or written sources, the biographer Swatonius, who's writing under the Emperor Hadrian, so hundreds of years after Augustus.

We also have Cassius Dio, who's writing under the Severinth, and he is probably our most detailed source. course is writing far, far removed in a very different context. We do have Augustus's autobiographical inscription called the Race Guestad. And we also know that Augustus did write an autobiography that we do not have. Swatonius and Cassius Dioc claimed to have read that and they will quote bits of it. But there's no source that can be trusted unanimously. And so scraping away the spin from the fact is very challenging. Our other source is a very surprisingly preserved fragment from a lost biography of Augustus by a man named Nicolaus of Damascus. And it just happens to tell a number of stories written much closer, actually written while Augustus was alive. But it does actually become difficult because

Augustus himself, when he created the famous Ray Gestai, the inscription that recounts his career, doesn't mention anything from before Julius Caesar's murder. So we're always slightly guessing. We do know young Octavius has two sisters, one older, one younger. Conforming to tradition too, they are given the feminine version of the family patronym. Both are named Octavia. In Roman homes, one imagines it can get very confusing. In a slight twist as a means of differentiation, perhaps,

Gaius Octavius Jr. will be better known as Octavian. The family, as we've established, are not Blue Bloods, but neither are they impoverished. Historically, they've been involved in trade and commerce. In digging for illustrious forebears, the family tree does show to a paternal great-grandfather who was a military tribune, involved in the second Punic War against Carthage.

But it will also be alleged, Later that another great-great-grandfather was, whisper it quietly, a slave. As a free man, he became a rope-maker. The family does have connections, nevertheless. Gaius's wife, Attia, Octavian's mother, is the daughter of a woman named Julia, of the Giulia clan, and she just happens to be the sister of a man who is on the up, one Gaius Julius Caesar. Neville Morley is Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter.

Octavian's father was actually the first member of the family to become consul, which is not a terribly impressive lineage. It does show, of course, that his family was sufficiently wealthy, sufficiently well-connected, and the fact that Octavian's father marries due to... as Caesar's niece is also, you could say, a sign that they are coming up in the world. You know, they're getting a connection with a much more established aristocratic family. Caesar isn't Caesar yet, not as we'll come to know him, though he's clearly destined for bigger things. He has had some early military success, and he's just been appointed Pontifex Maximus, or high priest.

opposed as important politically as it is religious. Though there's a whiff of corruption about his election, as well as scurrilous rumors about the extent of his personal debts, such things will take Caesar throughout his life. As a child, Octavian will have little to do with his great uncle, but the link will not be forgotten. The fact that Julius Caesar had risen to prominence really helped him, but there was no logical reason that Octavian,

should have risen to power just because his sort of cousin, uncle, had. When Octavian is a toddler, the family gets its dream move and relocates south to the town of Nola in today's Campania region in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, though tragedy will soon strike. Octavian's early life and the prospect that the family is rising up in the world more or less falls apart early on, because when he's four, his father dies suddenly. Now, his mother remarries pretty quickly again to a entirely respectable senator, but nevertheless, the possibility of a sort of dramatic rise has been somewhat halted. His mother, Atya, is a canny operator, shrewd enough to ring-fence the family's wealth.

On his death, it turns out, Gaius Octavius who's worth 400,000 Cistercies, a sizable sum, it's squirreled away into property and savings. Certainly the new husband, Lucius Marcius Philippus, represents a step-up in status. He is an influential political figure. Though as a stepfather, Philippus is somewhat lacking, showing little interest in Atya's kids. Octavian will be packed off frequently to Grandma Julia, or Julia Minor, as she's sometimes called, given a similar plethora of Julius.

His grandmother will become an important figure in Octavian's life. Crucially, she will bring him onto the radar of her brother, great-uncle Julius. There is this Caesar connection. It's not just that he is Caesar's great-nephew. the key thing is Caesar doesn't have very much in the way of family. He doesn't have a legitimate son. Not that Julius Caesar is around much either. Through much of Octavian's early years, he too is absent, yomping his legions across the continent. In 60 BC, an oligarchal arrangement is put in place. It's known as the first triumvirate. It sees Caesar

and his allies, Pompeian Crassus, divvying up the spoils of the Roman world, running its territories as their own private fiefdoms, enriching themselves beyond their wildest imaginations. As a child, Octavian does all the usual stuff for a youth of his years. He's instructed in Latin and Greek, taught poetry and eration and everything else. His first tutor is a Greek slave named Sfarus, whom he were later free. Physically slight, and with the head of golden curls, Octavian does not cut the most macho of figures. His career, it is assumed, will probably not lie in soldiering,

despite the rudimentary training he's obliged to undertake. What's more, Octavian proves to be something of a sickly child, he frequently takes to his bed, sometimes for weeks, even months on end. We don't know exactly what the affliction was, possibly something gastrointestinal, but it will blight Octavian throughout his life. Now, this is a problem with all modern studies of ancient medicine. Doing a medical diagnosis is hard enough in the modern world, doing it using ancient categories from very irregular evidence.

In Gaius Octavius's case, clearly illness was a recurring problem in his early life, And then there's a very serious illness after he's gained control over the Roman world. That illness at least, Soutonius seems to believe it was a liver ailment. It's been suggested that the Caesarian family in general, some of them suffered from breathing difficulties, some of them suffered from headaches, mental pressures. You can't do a definite medical diagnosis.

But he isn't well, and certainly those early illnesses, there's no suggestion they're being feigned. I don't mean to suggest that he wasn't sickly. It was very easy to be sickly in ancient Rome. It was a time before vaccines and before antibiotics. And Julius Caesar, of course, was almost surely epileptic. The Emperor Claudius also had a number of conditions, some of which we could label and some we can't. So I think it is likely that Octavian was probably not an exceptionally strong Roman.

And that may make it extraordinary that he was able to use the military so effectively because usually the military responds to leaders who are out in battle with them like Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and the fact that he was able to find other ways to control the military, to find extremely trusted allies and generals to be able to wage his war for him. Probably he was actually smart for his longevity. At the tender age of 12, Octavian gives his first public oration. His beloved grandmother, Julia, has passed away. He addresses the mourners who gathered for her funeral.

Quite an honor to be accorded one so young. And we often think, oh, funerals, though, are sort of private familial affairs. But that is not at all true in ancient Rome, especially for elite families, especially for someone like the sister of Julius Caesar. Junerals were state occasions. There were hundreds of people in attendance. There were parades that went all throughout the city. And the centerpiece of them with a long speech of praise that would be given by one family member, usually an up and coming family member, in the forum in front of hundreds of people. And Octavian, for reasons we don't know. Maybe he was a very good speaker in school. He was chosen to give

this speech. I think this is probably where Caesar noticed him, that he was able to control a crowd, that he was able to give a very good speech that requires a lot of emotional manipulation. Octavian has passed the proverbial audition. At 15, when he comes of age, he enters Honorable Roman civic adulthood. A year later, with some string pulling on the part of his great uncle, he is elected to the College of Pontiffs, a quasi-religious office of the Roman Civil Service. Caesar has another job for him too.

He also puts him in charge of the games that Julius Caesar commissioned for when he was opening his grand temple of Venus. These were a huge part of the Roman religious calendar. They were also a huge place in which civic leaders and the general populace interacted. Octavian wasn't old enough yet to hold governmental positions, but because Julius Caesar was personally funding these games, he was able to pick a person who would preside over them. And so he in Athens gave Octavian a huge public. and a huge public spotlight.

It was in 49 BC that Caesar had made his famous power grab, leading his troops across the Rubicon River to march on Rome. By bringing his army into the capital, something absolutely forbidden under law, Caesar has technically committed a treasonous act. His coup may have succeeded, making him now Rome's main man, but it has plunged the state into a new civil war.

Caesar's old ally, Pompey, charged with defending the Roman state, is now his adversary. Theirs will be an epic conflict, one that spills across the Adriatic into the Balkans, one that will end on the plains of Farsalis, Greece, in 48 BC. Caesar emerges victorious. In the aftermath, Pompey flees to Egypt. Caesar follows in hot pursuit. Do you wish you could just hit skip on the worst parts of your life? You know the same way you can skip an ad?

I get it. I'm Siaia and I live in Ice Cove. I've made some questionable decisions that didn't end up the way I planned. And today I'm still figuring it out. Somehow things usually get worse before they get better. Apparently, that's how I roll. So bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride. Stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays on CBC Gem.

This September, on the news. Noiser Podcast Network. On Jane Austen stories, Dame Julie Andrews continues to bring Austin's beloved classic Emma to life. On short history of, we're in medieval England for the fascinating story of the Peasants' Revolt, and 25 years on from 9-11 were on the ground in New York City. On real survival stories, we're on a luscious winery in northwest America, and venturing into a missile silo in the dead of night as the U.S. is threatened with nuclear disaster. And in Sherlock Holmes, short stories, get two episodes each week as Hugh Bonneville explores Conan Doyle's great novel A Study in Scarlet. Get all of these shows and more early and add free on Noiser Plus.

It's fair to say throughout this period that Rome labours under something of an inferiority complex, an imposter syndrome. Though it's long since exceeded Greece, both in wealth and power, it still holds a deep reverence for Hellenic culture. There's that bourgeoisie. affectation that sees Romans speaking Greek rather than Latin to each other. There's the business of aspiring Romans sending their sons to Greek finishing schools, just as Octavian's parents will do, and it's not just Greece. There is to an even older civilization which casts a spell, Egypt, which now exists in a Greek-inflected incarnation. As the supplier of grain to Rome, Egypt is still fabulously rich.

The kingdom on the Nile, in particular the great port of Alexandria, is beguilingly exotic. Joyce Tilsley is professor of Egyptology at the University of Manchester. Egypt is already ancient at this time. It's a long culture. It's got curious gods.

It's got medical and religious knowledge. The Greeks and the Romans are fascinated with Egypt as well. They would like to be connected to that land. And you've got Alexandria, which is an ultra-modern city, its port, it's generating a lot of income. There's a university there, there's a famous library there. It's the utmost in sort of modern cities. It's for this reason that the next turn of events is so shocking. On arriving in Alexandria, Caesar is greeted with a gift from the resident boy king of Egypt, Ptolemy the 13th.

The present is intended to curry favour with the great Roman wall. but it's a grisly offering, Pompey's severed head. Caesar's rage over his great rival's ignominious end is matched only by his ardor for the Boy King's co-ruler, his glamorous sister, Cleopatra. It will be Caesar's lengthy Egyptian sojourn, leaving domestic affairs in the hands of Mark Anthony that will provide yet more ammunition for his senatorial opponents. the master of Rome now in bed with, in every sense, a foreign sovereign. Despite Pompey's death, the civil war is not yet over.

His loyalists are still out there in the provinces. First Caesar must defeat an army lurking in North Africa, modern-day Tunisia. Exploiting his connections to his great-uncle, Octavian requests to come along, to be part of Caesar's entourage. Despite Caesar's willingness, not all are so infused. Because we know that his mother, Atya, despite HBO's Rome's best attempts to portray her as a megalomaniac, she actually didn't really want her son to be involved with Julius Caesar, and she prevented him from going on the first campaign.

She said it was because he was sickly, but I think we can probably interpret that as she was wary for other reasons of her son being attached to this civil warrior. She will find it hard to say no a second time. For, in a follow-up mission to crush the last pockets of resistance, Caesar must now venture to Spain, Hispania. There, Pompey's two sons, Neus and Sextus, have holed up, hoping to raise an army to retake Rome. This time, the 16-year-old Octavian gets permission. He saddles up and prepares to head west. Spain, famously, has been dubbed Rome's Vietnam.

Its rugged terrain making it a killing field for invading armies. But Caesar will drop his proverbial napal napalm regardless. In November 46 BC, Caesar's legions march out from Rome. They do so at a frightening pace. According to Suetonius, they reached the Spanish border in just 24 days. The Hispania campaign is notable for one of Caesar's most savage victories, the Battle of Munda, fought in modern. and A. Andalusia. But Octavian will be nowhere near the action. As it turns out, he really does

fall ill. He will ultimately have to be carried to Spain on a litter, arriving long after the fighting is over. Caesar nonetheless appreciates the effort it took for his great nephew to make it this far. He salutes Octavian's grit, his determination. He's going to make the effort. He knows the importance of a military reputation, but also he's not a coward. He's just not particularly physically gifted. And instead, he'll realize where his true strengths lie. And they lie in organization, in political genius, not in fighting on a battlefield. The big plus is that on the journey home, Caesar and Octavian spend time together. As they proceed at a more leisurely pace, Caesar begins to recognize the qualities of his face, scrawny ward.

He's something of a dark horse. That Octavian can work a crowd has already been proven, and he's not backward about coming forward. Octavian has a pair of boyhood pals. Their names are Marcus Vipsanias Agrippa and Gaius Mycinas. It is they who will be with him later in Apollonia. For the moment, it's Agripper who is of pressing concern. Agrippa has a brother who's been a man.

among the enemy troops rounded up after Farsilus, fighting alongside Pompey. He is currently a prisoner of war. Octavian successfully appeals for the man's life. Caesar grants clemency. It's during this time on the road, quite possibly, that Caesar starts to rethink his legacy, and most likely goes about redrawing his will. On his return, the scroll is lodged in the sacred temple of the temple of the world. Vesta and its guardians, the Vestal Virgins.

They are Rome's state archivists, keepers of all-important documentation. The will is dated September 45 BC, six months before Caesar's death. Crucially, Julius Caesar has no sum, his only daughter died in childbirth back in the 50s, and it's quite clear Caesar saw something in this teenager, someone who might be be worth nurturing. Julie Thezer was looking for someone that he could groom. He was looking for a family ally, not necessarily to be his heir in a sense of a monarchy, but in terms of just having someone to carry on his line and his political legacies,

and he wanted someone that was going to be a political power player to come after him, to be able to ensure that those things lasted. And he had Mark Antony, but he needed more. Caesar's heir, it should be noted here, is not the inheritor of his political office. It pertains only to his wealth and his estates, both of which are vast. But in ancient Rome, wealth and political power are inextricably mixed. Just as important, given the cult devotion of a Roman army to its general, it will almost certainly guarantee Octavian the loyalty of Caesar's legions.

No small matter should anyone try to oppose him. Not that Caesar has plans to depart this life just yet. Hale and hearty there should be plenty of time yet to mould his replacement. Octavian in the meantime sits quietly on the sidelines of the Caesar administration. No one pays him too much attention. He can blend into his surroundings, but he watches, he learns. On the streets and amongst the legions, Octavian's name is unlikely to be on anyone's lips when it comes to being Caesar's successor.

Not at this point, anyhow. The book he's favourite is surely Caesar's sidekick, Mark Anthony, a great general himself. Anthony will even become his co-consul, though Caesar's rolling status as dictator makes him very much top dog. During Caesar's frequent long absences, whether campaigning or carousing, Anthony has stood in for him, often to his own frustration. Few would disagree that Anthony is a capable deputy. He has immense political and martial capabilities.

But Julius Caesar, he is not. In fact, of late, Anthony has seemingly gone off the rails. Already a notorious drinker, he's now a full-on inebriate, prone to throwing up in the Senate. He's also taken to parading around Rome and a chariot pulled by a team of lions. He has a bevy of beautiful actresses at his personal disposal. Oh, and he likes dressing up as Hercules. Plus, he is perturbed, jealous even, over the sudden advent of this new kid on the block, this pallid weakling Octavian, and the inexplicable overindulgence of him by Caesar.

In private, Antony will concede that the optimates in the Senate may be onto something, that Caesar's antics are getting a bit much, that when it comes to accusations of kingly posturing, they may well have a point. Anthony's motivation is open to interpretation, but in response to the crisis, he takes part in a provocative public incident. On February the 15th,

at the festival of Lupercalia, while Caesar sits in the VIP box watching the parade, Anthony goes through a charade. He brandishes a gold diadem, an ornamental headband, and, before the crowd, raises it up and places it upon Caesar's head. Though Caesar jokingly waves Anthony away, twice, in fact, the action is very clear. What has been enacted is a mock coronation. An act of damnation on Anthony's part, or a piece of drunken japerie, who knows. But to Caesar's opponents, the tenders of the Republican flame, such things cannot stand.

The problem was the Roman Republic's structure was not designed to govern what was an expanding empire across the entire Mediterranean world. It was meant to govern Rome, perhaps Italy. The larger the Republic gets, the more the system cracks, because individuals are gaining more and more power. more wealth, more military resources, until what you get in the last generations of the Roman Republic is simply a rolling series of civil wars between what are usually just called the Republican warlords, the men who are fighting for control, Gaius Marius, Cornelius Sulla, Nias Pompeius Magnus, and of course the eventual victor, Julius Caesar. But all of them have the same problem, which is the Republic's government structures,

are designed to stop one person taking control. And if you do act like an open autocrat, as Julius Caesar did, there is still deep-rooted hostility to anyone who might be called a rex, a king. This September on the Noiser Podcast Network, on Jane Austen's stories, Dame Julie Andrews, continues to bring Austin's beloved classic Emma to life. On short history of, we're in medieval England for the fascinating story of the Peasants' Revolt, and 25 years on from 9-11 were on the ground in New York City. On real survival stories, we're on a luscious winery in Northwest America and venturing into a missile silo in the

dead of night as the U.S. is threatened with nuclear disaster. And in Sherlock Holmes' short stories, get two episodes each week as Hugh Bonneville explores Conan Doyle's great novel, A Study in Scarlet. Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus. Octavian, if only Caesar had a son. The lack of biological male heirs is a phenomenon that will test the rulers of the Julian line for generations, though Caesar does have a son. During his excursion with Cleopatra, which included a cruise down the Nile, their romantic trist had produced a love child, a boy whom Cleopatra named unambiguously, Cesarean. He will be just under three years old at the time of Caesar's death. As he's illegitimate,

Cesarian's claims to his father's inheritance are not recognized under Roman law. But as the crown prince of Egypt, set to rule one day as Pharaoh Ptolemy the 15th, he's not to be removed completely from the equation. Not yet. On the street, Julius Caesar remains popular, a man of the people. His conquests, in the boudoir and on the battlefield, have burnished the legend. After decades of civil war, he has begun a program of urban regeneration, ushered in an age of prosperity. Venturing into the northern unknown, Caesar has conquered the barbarian land of Gaul. He has even, twice, led expeditions to the far-off island of Britannia, the very edge of the earth.

To cap it all, on March the 18th, 404. B.C., Caesar is scheduled to depart Italy's shores, ready to lead the biggest military campaign in history, a mission to thwart the old wet noir, the Parthian Empire, the Middle Eastern behemoth centered in today's Iran. Victory there will extend the Roman realm all the way to the Caspian Sea. It will put Caesar on a par with Alexander the Great, the legendary Greek conqueror, against whom all success must be measured. To his detractors in the Senate, the conservative optimates, Caesar's latest military escapade is just more evidence of his rampant megalomania.

There's his appointment as dictator perpetual, dictator for life. There's his head appearing on the Roman coinage, his birthday being honoured with a public holiday. He's declared status as parents' patriots, father of the nation. Do the masses care? Not really. But the powers that B cannot counten Caesar's increasingly regal behaviour.

War against the Parthians will take him away for up to three years. Plus, a landmark victory there will make the insufferable Caesar untouchable. They must act fast, it's now or never. And his death must come as a piece of political theatre. It must make a state. an act performed on behalf of the people.

The plotters resolved to kill him by their own hands, and in the one place that no one will suspect, the one place where weapons are prohibited, right there in the Senate. On March the 15th, they strike. As the assassins flee, messengers run through the streets, proclaiming freedom from oppression.

But their words ring hot. Follow. Three days after Caesar's death, the funeral cortes proceeds down the Via Sacra, towards the half-built forum. The coffin is accompanied by a guard of honor, veterans of Caesar's Gallic wars. Behind it trail Calpurnia and the other mourners. Singers perform deathly dirges. Despite the grandeur, there is tension in the air. From the platform, the rostra, Mark Anthony calls for Khan. Over the past 48 hours, he has met with the ringleaders of the plot, Brutus, Cassius, and Decimus. In an emergency Senate hearing, the conspirators have been granted amnesty. For the sake of Rome,

an uneasy truce has been established between the two factions. The killers plead their case. They had acted not out of their hatred for Caesar, but of their love for the Republic. Anthony must tread cautiously. He must appear even-handed, present himself as a statesman, a leader. He brandishes Caesar's bloody robe with its 23 slashes. He wants the public to comprehend the full extent of the butchery. But then he appeals for his friends, Romans, countrymen to lend him their ears. This is not the time for partisan grandstanding.

He has come to bury Caesar not to praise him. As the sole living consul, Anthony is the highest-ranking politician in Rome. As Caesar's trustee general is number two, he can command the loyalty of the legions. It is surely he who will assume Caesar's mantle. In private, Calpurnia has already released to him part of Caesar's vast fortune, the better to fund an army. But there is one more twist to this tale. As Anthony takes the parchment scroll and reads Caesar's will aloud, as his customary,

it will not be himself who is anointed as Caesar's successor. Caesar's heir instead is revealed as the obscure grandchild of his sister, Julia. In a shock move, Caesar has adopted him posthumously as his very own son, an 18-year-old youth called Octavian. As the 23 senators deliver their death blows to Caesar, Octavian is blissfully unaware as to this dramatic turn of events. Three days later, as his name is read out in the will, he remains completely oblivious, with no conception of what the fates have in store for him. It certainly wasn't clear at the beginning of his life that this was how things were going

to end up. By the end of his life, almost nobody. in Rome can conceive of a different form of government. He is at this time not in Rome at all. Rather, if you remember, he's across the Adriatic Sea in Apollonia. As a young man who's dipped his toes in the political shallows, destined perhaps for a career in the civil service, Octavian has been dispatched to a finishing school of sorts

to polish up his maths, his philosophy, his oratory, and also some rudimentary military skills, which he undertakes awkwardly alongside those inseparable best friends, Agrippa and Mycinas. It is perhaps the greatest piece of fascination when it comes to the future Emperor Augustus that while he did some basic military training, he isn't a great soldier, he's not even a good one.

In tranquil surroundings, it otherwise seems to be going well. But a week or so after the sun, seismic events in Rome, an exhausted messenger gallops his horse into the school's quadrangle. And, as we know from the opening to this story, the letter he presents to Octavian contains stunning news. But the courier's insistence that he must leave for Rome immediately. Octavian is not so sure. There is a saying associated with Octavian that will become a personal motto, one which we use even today, one which demonstrates a certain cool, a rational approach, more haste, less speed. He dismisses the messenger. He will depart, he tells him, when he is good

and ready. As he stands there on the platform, Mark Anthony can feel with some justification that metaphorically he has just been punched in the gut. Octavian is now the claimant to 75% of of Caesar's estate. A lesser chunk has gone to Octavian's cousins, Quintus Pedius and Lucius Pinarius. In the pecking order of inheritance, Anthony is ranked only in the third tier of beneficiaries, assigned a mere executive function. Alongside, of all people, Dechimus, one of Caesar's very own killers. I mean, the death of Caesar is one of these points where things could have gone in lots of different ways.

The critical moment is at Caesar's funeral, and particularly when his will gets read out, Anthony makes a barnstorming speech, and essentially rouses up the people of Rome, or at least a sufficiently large mob of them, who had always been basically pro-Cesar. And obviously Anthony is thinking that this is going to give him the advantage. He can present himself as Caesar's loyal friend. He can get the mob on side. He's got armies that are loyal to him. But Caesar is clearly supporting Octavius already in 47, perhaps 48 BC, so several years before.

And he is the most obvious of the available heirs. Cesarian is not a valid heir in Roman law. And so it would be very difficult to incorporate. him formally into a will. What I would suspect, I can't prove, is the longer Caesar knew Gaius Octavius. He does seem to be gaining more and more respect, at least a sense of potential. And that gives him the edge over, say, Mark Anthony. Caesar, the man of the people, the populari, has one more surprise.

Every Roman citizen is to be awarded 300 Sestercese, about three months wage. for your average labourer, an act of colossal generosity. And he's bequeathed to the public a huge tract of land beside the Tiber, to be dedicated as public gardens. As it stands, Caesar's body is due to be cremated shortly, at the campus Martius, the field of Mars, a mile or so away. But such is their love for Caesar, and their anger it is murder. The mob will have none of it.

none of it. Great Caesar, their benefactor, should be cremated in public, they demand. Right there in the forum. Men surge forth to storm the Senate building, scene of the crime. There they smash up furniture and drag out the wood to build an improvised pyre. Caesar's body is removed from the golden beer on which it sits and placed carefully atop it. As the flames rage, old soldiers wiping away tears, throw on their weapons. Women had their jewellery. The mass hysteria turns to rioting, looting, and more fires. Rome will burn through the night. The capital of the Western world is

now bordering on anarchy, and it is onto this stage that Octavian, soon to be Augustus, must step. In the next episode, alongside Mark Anthony, Octavian will hunt down Caesar's assassins. With their colleague Leopardus, a ruling second triumphal at his forward. Anthony will soon go rogue, however, beguiled just like Caesar by Queen Cleopatra of Egypt. Octavian will strike without mercy. With General Agrippa to the fore, he will soon command absolute power over the entire Roman world. That's next time. You can listen to the final two parts of the Augusta story right now, without waiting and without ads, by joining Noysa Plus. Click the link in the episode description, or head to Noyser.com forward slash subscriptions to find

out more. This September on the Noyser podcast network, on Jane Austen's stories, Dame Julie Andrews continues to bring Austin's beloved classic Emma to life. On short history of, we're in medieval England for the fascinating story of the Peasants' Revolt, and 25 years on from now, 9-11 were on the ground in New York City. On real survival stories, we're on a luscious winery in northwest America and venturing into a missile silo in the dead of night as the US is threatened with nuclear disaster. And in Sherlock Holmes short stories, get two episodes each week as Hugh Bonneville explores Conan Doyle's great novel, A Study in Scarlet. Get all of these shows and more early and add-free on Noiser Plus.