In history many great leader have come into power. In Ancient Rome, Octavian Augustus was one of those great leaders. Octavian was a great leader; of course he takes after his adoptive-father, Julius Caesar. He lived a good childhood with his adoptive-father and became a strong a powerful leader. The path to become the first Roman Emperor was a difficult one, but Octavian never gave up. Overall, Octavian was mature as a child, strong through a time to war, and a great leader when the empire was falling. But even when the tough gets going, at one point the tough must stop. In the world of Rome, there were frequent riots, factional outbreaks, and political gangs claiming lives and property day after day; Octavian was lucky to have spent most of his life outside of Rome in the healthy environment of Velitrae. Childhood for Octavian was also hard, at the age of 12, he was forced to make funeral arrangements for his grandmother (“The Life of Augustus Caesar: Youth (Part 1)”). To be given a prominent role at this age suggests that he quickly attained a mature self-possession that he would display for the rest of his life. At the age of 14, Octavian was given more freedoms in the political field and in his studies. Although he was given freedoms in the political field and in his studies:
His mother would not let him leave the house other than as he did before, when he was a child, and she made him keep to the same mode of life and sleep in the same apartment as before. For he was of age only by law, and in other respects was taken care of as a child. (“Pax Romana”)
As a 15 year old, Octavian was elected to priesthood, which was an early place in his political advancement. Caesar was a great and powerful man, he was the most loved and hated man within the kingdom. Octavian and Antony; who was Caesar’s second in command fought between Caesars substantial financial resources, and the loyalty of his troops. The disappearance of Caesar meant that there need to be leader. This starts the turning point in Octavian’s career. “Antony and Octavian agreed to divide effective power between them, Octavian taking the western provinces, and Antony the east, with a smaller third share for their Lepidus” (Augustus, University of Saskatchewan). This became known as the Second Triumvirate. Octavian spent the following years building up and consolidating his position in the west. In 38 BC, he launched a determined campaign to capture Sicily from Sextus Pompey, son of Pompey the Great, who had turned the island into a staging ground from which to harass Rome's grain supplies. It took two years to win and Octavian was then faced with the task of neutralizing Lepidus when the latter attempted to stage a coup against him. Octavian began to doff the role of the ruthless military war land and instead presented himself as a defender of the Republic. This strategy was to stand him in a good stead in the Propaganda war against Antony (“Augustus”). Once Octavian had consolidated his hold on the west he was in a position for a final showdown with Mark Antony. Mark Antony had fallen under the influence of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, who was mistrusted by many Romans. The beginning of the end for Antony came in 32 BC, when Octavian drove Antony's supporters from Rome and declared war on Cleopatra. Antony advanced to Actium on the east side of the Adriatic, where the final sea battle was fought on the second of September, 31 BC. After a brief struggle, Antony and Cleopatra fled the scene, yielding outright victory to Octavian. The civil wars ended with their suicide in Egypt the following year. “Octavian was now the sole ruler of the Roman world; four years later in 27 BC, he was granted the title of Augustus, becoming the first Roman Emperor” (“Augustus”). Octavian was now a ruler just like his adoptive father. No one knew how powerful and influential this emperor would be, many must have thought he would turn out just like Julius, the most hated and loved