Excerpt from The Death of Caesar by Barry Strauss, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Antony now mended his ways once more by marrying again after a divorce, this time choosing a twice-widowed noblewoman, Fulvia. Of all the powerful women of the era, Fulvia is in a class of her own. She alone once wore a sword and recruited an army, which earned her the backhanded compliment of having her name inscribed on her enemy's sling bullets along with rude references to her body parts. But she did most of her fighting with words. A populist through and through, Fulvia married three politicians in turn: the street-fighting demagogue Clodius, Curio—a People's Tribune who supported Caesar—and finally and most fatefully, Antony. Antony's enemies claimed that Fulvia controlled him, which is not true. But this strong woman probably stiffened his spine and she almost certainly shared with Antony the political skills learned from her two earlier husbands.

When Antony joined Caesar on his return to Italy in August 45 B.C., he was back in the dictator's favor. As he stood beside Caesar and entered Mediolanum, basking in the public's acclaim, Antony might have imagined a glorious future. But obstacles lay on the road ahead.

OCTAVIAN

The third man in Caesar's entourage was Octavian. He was born on September 23, 63 B.C. A good twenty years younger than Antony or Decimus, he projected an authority beyond his years. If Antony was Hercules then Octavian was a short-statured Apollo: very handsome, bright-eyed, and with slightly curly blond hair. Only the bad teeth and indifferent hair grooming betrayed the reality of a man who scorned appearances and cut to the heart of things. It was an inner strength that compensated for a less than herculean physique.

Neither Antony nor Decimus had been with Caesar in Hispania but Octavian had. He arrived too late for the fighting, however, because a serious illness kept him bedridden. Octavian was never the healthiest of men. When he recovered he and his companions reached Caesar in Hispania after a shipwreck and a dangerous trip through hostile country, which earned the dictator's admiration—a quality that only increased as he spent time with the clever and talented young man. Caesar now gave his grandnephew the honor of sharing his carriage in Hispania. It was not the first time that Caesar showed his esteem for Octavian, but then again, the youth had long showed promise.

In 51 B.C., at the age of only twelve, Octavian gave the funeral oration for his grandmother Julia—Caesar's sister—on the Speaker's Platform in Rome. Soon after turning fifteen in 48 B.C. he was elected as one of Rome's highest-ranking priests. One of his responsibilities was temporarily serving as chief magistrate, and he made quite a sight at his age sitting on the tribunal in the Forum and handing out judgments. In 46 B.C. Caesar returned to Rome and celebrated a series of triumphs for his victories in Gaul and the civil war. In one of them, he allowed Octavian to follow behind his triumphal chariot (presumably on horseback), wearing an officer's insignia, even though Octavian had not even taken part in the campaign. Since this honor usually went to the sons of a triumphing general, it suggested that Caesar thought of his seventeen-year-old grandnephew as practically his son. It was an interesting choice.

Unlike Antony, Decimus, or Caesar himself, Octavian was not the pure product of the old Roman nobility. Octavian was of noble descent only on his mother's side—his mother, Atia, was the daughter of Caesar's sister Julia. Octavian's father, Gaius Octavius, came from a wealthy but not quite top-tier background; from a family of Roman knights, that is, a social order of Romans who were wealthy but not senators. Gaius Octavius was his family's first senator. The Octavii came from Velitrae (modern Velletri), a small and insignificant place in the Alban Hills outside Rome, an origin offering plenty of material for snobs to look down at. Gaius Octavius had a successful military and political career cut short by his death in 59 B.C. around the age of forty.

Excerpted from The Death of Caesar by Barry Strauss. Copyright © 2015 by Barry Strauss. Excerpted by permission of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.