Chosen Like Caesar's Son

In 45 BC, Julius Caesar did something that would reshape the Roman Empire forever. He adopted his eighteen-year-old grandnephew, Octavian — a sickly young man from a modest family in Velitrae. This was no accident of birth. Caesar surveyed every eligible candidate in Rome and deliberately chose Octavian, writing his name into his will as son and heir. When Caesar was assassinated the following year, that single act of adoption transformed an unremarkable teenager into Augustus, the most powerful man in the ancient world.…