On the 19th August, 14 CE, 767 years after the founding of Rome, nearly exactly 2001 years ago, the first Emperor of Rome, Augustus, finally died, at 75 years of age. His great-uncle and adoptive father, Julius Caesar, the most brilliant and successful general in Rome’s history, had been assassinated aged 56 after being the dictator of Rome for only 5 years. Augustus, on the other hand, thrust into the limelight at age 18, with no military or political experience, ruled Rome either as one-third of a triumvirate or by himself for 58 years and died, probably of natural causes, while still in power. His reign laid the foundations of a regime that lasted, in one form or another, for nearly fifteen hundred years through the ultimate decline of the Western Roman Empire and until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. He was one of the most influential figures in all of Western history - and yet I bet most of you hardly know anything about him.

WELL - THIS IS HIS STORY.

It's a story that conta