Sign-In
Cart
Augustus and the Roman Settlement: How Rome's First Emperor Turned Civil War into a New Order
Paperback
Historical FiguresAncient RomeItalian History
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Sep 21 2026
Pages: 126
Weight: 0.36
Height: 0.32 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
On January 13, 27 BC, a man stood before the Roman Senate and offered to give up his power.
He had spent seventeen years fighting for it. He had crushed his great-uncle's killers at Philippi. He had outlasted two partners in a three-man alliance built on mutual suspicion. He had destroyed the last rival to his rule at Actium, and watched that rival's lover - the last independent monarch of Egypt - take her own life rather than be paraded through Rome in chains.
Now he told the Senate he was done. The civil wars were over. The extraordinary powers he'd held would be surrendered. The Republic would govern itself again.
It was theater. Everyone in the room understood this - including the man performing it.
The senators didn't let him walk away. They begged him to stay, handed him command of the provinces holding Rome's legions, and gave him a new name no Roman had ever carried: Augustus. He had asked for nothing, and walked out with more power than he'd walked in with.
This is the story of how a Roman boy from a family with no consular tradition became Caesar's chosen heir at eighteen, survived proscription and civil war, and then built something no earlier Roman had managed - not simply victory, but a settlement. Twice revised, twice renegotiated, it let Rome believe it still governed itself while one man quietly arranged for it not to.
Augustus and the Roman Settlement traces the full arc: the raw teenage gamble that raised an illegal army, the brutal arithmetic of the proscriptions, the propaganda war against Antony and Cleopatra, and the two settlements of 27 and 23 BC that actually built an empire - followed by a succession crisis Augustus himself never solved, and a death that tested, for the first time, whether his system could survive without him.
It did. For five centuries.
Also in
Historical Figures
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy: A Righteous Gentile vs. the Third Reich
Metaxas, Eric
Paperback
The Rise of Thomas Cromwell: Power and Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII, 1485-1534
Everett, Michael
Paperback
One Man in: The Explosive Firsthand Account of the Lone Special-Ops Commando Who Fought Off a Major Terrorist Attack in Kenya
Craighead, Christian
Hardcover
The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People's Constitution
Wegman, Jesse
Hardcover
The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel: Romanovs, Revolutionaries, and the Forgotten Titan Who Fueled the World
Brunt, Douglas
Hardcover
Solo and Together: Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, an Enigmatic Life and Marriage
Hansen, James R.
Hardcover
A Librarian's War: The Man Who Fought World War II with Books and Brought the Joy of Reading to Millions
Manning, Molly Guptill
Hardcover
Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor
Kuehn, Christine
Paperback
America's Founding Son: John Quincy Adams, from President to Political Maverick
Crawford, Bob
Hardcover
Operation Sparrow: The Incredible True Story of the Spies Who Tricked Hitler and Won the War
Bell, Jason
Hardcover
Cicero's Tongue: The Life of Rome's Greatest Orator and the End of the Republic
Edwards, Catharine
Hardcover
The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany
Strauss, Gwen
Paperback
Thomas Jefferson Survives: American Independence in His Time and Ours
Cogliano, Francis D.
Onuf, Peter S.
Hardcover
Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
Bourdain, Anthony
Paperback
A Thousand Shall Fall: The Electrifying Story of a Soldier and His Family Who Dared to Practice Their Faith in Hitler's Germany
Mundy, Susi Hasel
Paperback
The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom
Sherrill, John
Boom, Corrie Ten
Paperback
The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I
Brunt, Douglas
Paperback
The Forsaken Founder: Gouverneur Morris, the Unsung Patriot Who Wrote the Constitution, Stood Up to Slavery, and Survived the Reign of Terror
Greenberger, Scott S.
Hardcover
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain's Queen Without a Crown
Foster, Ann
Hardcover
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
Winchester, Simon
Paperback
Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson
Curran, Andrew S.
Hardcover
American Prometheus (Pulitzer Prize Winner): The Inspiration for the Major Motion Picture Oppenheimer
Sherwin, Martin J.
Bird, Kai
Paperback
The Confessions of Samuel Pepys: Private Revelations from Britain's Most Famed Diarist
de la Bédoyère, Guy
Hardcover
Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High
Beals, Melba Pattillo
Paperback
The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America
Rosen, Jeffrey
Paperback
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
Kiernan, Denise
Paperback
The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It
Mazzeo, Tilar J.
Paperback
The Power Broker (Pulitzer Prize Winner): Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
Caro, Robert A.
Hardcover
No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II
Goodwin, Doris Kearns
Paperback
The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man
Von Drehle, David
Paperback
The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty, and War
Molloy, J. T.
Donohue, John Chick
Paperback
The Man Behind the Cane: Preston Brooks, Political Violence, and the Road to the Civil War
Quigley, Paul
Hardcover
A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Woman Confronts the Legacy of Apartheid
Gobodo-Madikizela, Pumla
Paperback
Master of the Senate (Pulitzer Prize Winner): The Years of Lyndon Johnson III
Caro, Robert A.
Paperback
The First Fascist: The Sensational Life and Dark Legacy of the Marquis de Morès
Luzzatto, Sergio
Hardcover
Miracles in American History, Volume Two: Amazing Faith That Shaped the Nation: Adapted from William J. Federer's American Minute [With 2 Paperbacks]
Federer, Susie
Federer, William J.
Paperback
Tomboy Bride, 50th Anniversary Edition: One Woman's Personal Account of Life in Mining Camps of the West
Backus, Harriet Fish
Paperback
Women Make History: Fifty-Three Stories of Courage, Strength & Resilience
Spaulding, Sharon
Paperback
Douglas Kelly and the 22 Cells in Nuremberg: What Happens When Power, Loyalty, and Silence Go Unquestioned
Meier, Torsten
Paperback