"...the author does an admirable job of showing just how complicated and interconnected all the great patrician families were and how their jealousies and rivalries ultimately led to their undoing and the end of the great Roman Republic." — New York Journal of Books

The political process that culminated in the transition from Republic to Empire in ancient Rome began with the military reform of Caius Marius in the last decades of the 2nd century BC. Following the Civil War and Sulla’s dictatorship, it developed further with the First Triumvirate of Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, and two further civil wars. These wars, which saw Caesar pitted against Pompey, and Octavian fighting Anthony, ended in 27 BC with the rise to power of Octavian, the adoptive son of Caesar.

Before Augustus outlines a summary of the last years of the Roman Republic, weaving together the military, political, and social aspects. Scholar Natale Barca sets the protagonists within the complex societal and political system that they operated, analyzing their actions, and the epic battles that ensued.

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Glossary
• Preface
• I Caesar
• II Friends and Enemies
• III Caesar Favors a Rapprochement Between Crassus and Pompey
• IV The Triumviral Pact
• V The Julian Laws of 59
• VI Cicero
• VII Dark Clouds Gather
• VIII Clodius the Tribune
• IX Cato Is Removed from Rome
• X A Three-Step Strategy
• XI The Gallic War Explodes
• XII Gang Warfare
• XIII The Exile’s Return
• XIV The Lucca Agreement
• XV The Military Intervention in Egypt
• XVI The Suppression of the Uprising in Armorica and the Conquest of the Southwest
• XVII The First Landing in Britannia
• XVIII A Bridge Over the Rhine
• XIX The Second Landing in Britannia
• XX A Crisis Explodes on the Banks of the Rhine
• XXI The End of the Triumvirate
• XXII Caesar’s Friction with the Senate
• XXIII The Situation Turns on Itself
• XXIV Crossing the Rubicon
• XXV Outbreak of Civil War
• XXVI Pharsalus
• XXVII The Alexandrian War and Conquest of the Cimmerian Bosphorus
• XXVIII The African Campaign
• XXIX The Spanish Campaign
• XXX An Ephebe on the Victor’s Chariot
• XXXI More Than a Dictator for Life, Almost a King
• XXXII Cleopatra in Rome
• XXXIII Twenty-Three Stab Wounds
• XXXIV One Day in March in Apollonia
• XXXV The Second Triumvirate
• XXXVI Philippi
• XXXVII New Theaters of War
• XXXVIII Octavian, the Final Winner
• Epilogue Octavian Becomes the Princeps, the Augustus
• Further Reading
• Plates