From the author of the national best-seller Cicero, comes a sweeping, panoramic biography of the man who fashioned the greatest empire in the history of the world. He found Rome made of clay and left it made of marble. Imperator Caesar Augustus was one of the greatest figures of one of mankind's greatest ages. As Rome's first emperor, he transformed the unruly Roman Republic into the greatest empire the world had ever seen. His consolidation and expansion of the Roman power two thousand years ago laid the foundations, literally, for all of Western history to come. Yet Augustus himself remains a shadowy figure. Much has been written about his achievements, but his inner world has remained remarkably obsure. Now at least we have a book that brings this momentous figure to life. As he did in his best-selling Cicero, Anthony Everitt places this smart, shrewd political figure in the context of the world that made him (and that he himself made), describing with colorful detail one of the most remarkable periods in human history-complete with shipwrecks, human sacrifice, hairbreadth escapes, lots of sex, battles and ambushes, family scandals, and above all, the relentless pursuit of absolute power. The stage is crowded with larger-than-life personalities such as Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Tiberius, and many more. History doesn't get any more vivid than this.