Appian, a Greek historian from Alexandria writing in the second century, set down Rome’s civil wars in this series. Book 3 of The Civil Wars picks up after Julius Caesar’s murder: the dictator is gone, Brutus and Cassius have left Italy, and the city still has to decide who gets his name, his veterans, and his power.

The will is read in the Forum, Rome’s public square. A young man from the country, Octavian, finds he has been adopted and is heir to a name that is already a party. He takes the money, the old soldiers, and a patience Mark Antony does not yet respect. Cicero fills the Senate with last speeches against Antony, the Philippics. At Mutina in northern Italy both consuls — the two officials elected to run Rome for a year — fall in the fighting; Antony is driven off; the young man remains. The three meet on an island in a river and form a second triumvirate, a legal three-man board to “restore” the state. They cut up the provinces and name enemies. Brutus and Cassius still hold the east. In the west the method is already three men, a list, and an army that will not go home.