Suetonius, a Roman official of the early second century, wrote The Twelve Caesars, biographies from Julius Caesar through Domitian. This life is Augustus: Octavian, Julius Caesar's adopted heir. After Caesar's murder he beat his rivals and in 31 BC won the sea battle at Actium, off western Greece, against Mark Antony and Cleopatra.

He refused to be called king. He took the style of princeps, first citizen, with a tribune's power to veto the Senate and the greatest army command: monarchy in the clothes of the Republic, Rome run by a senate and elected officials, not a king. He found the city brick and left it marble, with the Forum of Augustus and the Altar of Peace, and moral laws that policed elite bedrooms. After Marcellus, Gaius, and Lucius died, he turned reluctantly to Tiberius. Suetonius notes plain furniture beside vast power, superstition, and the cry for Varus's lost legions in the German woods. Death at Nola in southern Italy and deification sealed it.