On 6 March 12 BC, after the death of Lepidus, he additionally took up the position of pontifex maximus, the high priest of the college of the Pontiffs, the most important position in Roman religion. Konsuln för år 44 Antonius och Caesars adoptivson Octavianus samt Lépidus bildar det andra triumviratet. Some have condemned his ruthless quest for power, especially his part in the proscription at the time of the triumvirate. One of Pompeius' naval commanders betrayed him and handed over Corsica and Sardinia to Octavian. He rudely demanded to know why Augustus had turned up to a trial to which he had not been called; Augustus replied that he came in the public interest. and then proclaimed the boundaries to be safe. The Senate reluctantly agreed and Gaius Octavian became Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus.Even though Octavian had defeated Antony, there still was unrest within the city. He defeated Antony and Cleopatra’s forces in a naval battle off Actium in 31 bc; they both killed themselves the following year. This bloody event sullied Octavian's reputation and was criticized by many, such as Augustan poet Sextus Propertius.Sextus Pompeius was the son of First Triumvir Pompey and still a renegade general following Julius Caesar's victory over his father.
This new conflict proved untenable for both Octavian and Antony, however. To more effectively govern the city of Rome, he divided it into 14 wards, and organized a bureaucracy to control them. On 15 March 44 BC, Julius Caesar was murdered by Brutus and a collection of Roman senators fed up with Caesar’s dictatorship. Once he was gone, Octavian, with the TREMENDOUS help from his skillful advisor, Agrippa, defeated Antony's forces.After the battle of Actium in 31 B.C., Octavian had complete control of the empire. Vid den tiden [n%C3%A4r Jesus föddes] utfärdade kejsar Augustus en förordning om att hela världen skulle skattskrivas" Luk. ), and had extended the borders of the Africa Province to the east and south.Judea was added to the province of Syria when Augustus deposed Herod Archelaus, successor to client king Herod the Great (73–4 BC). Although Primus was found guilty, some jurors voted to acquit, meaning that not everybody believed Augustus's testimony, an insult to the 'August One'.The Second Constitutional Settlement was completed in part to allay confusion and formalize Augustus' legal authority to intervene in Senatorial provinces.
Mark Antony later charged that Octavian had earned his adoption by Caesar through sexual favours, though Suetonius describes Antony's accusation as political slander. Sextus fled to the east with his remaining forces, where he was captured and executed in Miletus by one of Antony's generals the following year. His maternal great-uncle Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, and Octavius was named in Caesar's will as his adopted son and heir. Plutarch described the proscriptions as a ruthless and cutthroat swapping of friends and family among Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian. He decided that the Empire's boundaries were most important, so he staged campaigns at Illyricum and Dalmatia (35-33 B.C.)
Later Emperors took to wearing the civic crown, consular insignia, and the purple robes of a Triumphant general (toga picta), which became the imperial insignia well into the Byzantine era.Augustus also promoted the ideal of a superior Roman civilization with a task of ruling the world (to the extent to which the Romans knew it), a sentiment embodied in words that the contemporary poet Virgil attributes to a legendary ancestor of Augustus: tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento—"Roman, remember by your strength to rule the Earth's peoples!"
Soon thereafter, Antony divorced Octavia and ran off to Egypt to be with Cleopatra. He, therefore, followed the advice of Arius Didymus that "two Caesars are one too many", ordering Caesarion to be killed (Julius Caesar's son by Cleopatra), while sparing Cleopatra's children by Antony, with the exception of Antony's older son.Octavian had previously shown little mercy to surrendered enemies and acted in ways that had proven unpopular with the Roman people, yet he was given credit for pardoning many of his opponents after the Battle of Actium.Years of civil war had left Rome in a state of near lawlessness, but the Republic was not prepared to accept the control of Octavian as a despot. While maintaining a Republican facade, he retained complete authority suntil he died in A.D. 14. This undercut Octavian’s position as the only son of Caesar, and war was inevitable. At this same age, he began his first priesthood.Caesar became fond of his great nephew. On the other hand, Cleopatra could restore his army to full strength; he already was engaged in a romantic affair with her, so he decided to send Octavia back to Rome. From this point, his mother and stepfather took a more active role in raising him. Such an action would have ripped away the veneer of Republican restoration as promoted by Augustus, and exposed his fraud of merely being the first citizen, a first among equals. Syria (like Egypt after Antony) was governed by a high prefect of the equestrian class rather than by a proconsul or legate of Augustus.Again, no military effort was needed in 25 BC when Galatia (modern Turkey) was converted to a Roman province shortly after Amyntas of Galatia was killed by an avenging widow of a slain prince from Homonada. At the age of four, his father died. Nacio cerca del 23 de septiembre del 63 ac, con el nonmbre de Cayo Octaviano Turino, fue adoptado por el famoso dictador Romano Julio Cesar quien era su tio abuelo, y desde el 44 ac paso a llamarse Julio Cesar Octaviano.