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Gaius Octavius was born in 63 B.C. in Rome. When his maternal great uncle, Julius Caesar, was assassinated for subverting the Roman Republic, the young Octavian, only 18 at the time, became his heir. And though Julius is remembered as a great general and the man who set in motion Rome’s transition from Republic to Empire, it was young Octavian who actually oversaw that transition.
Initially partnering with Mark Antony and Marcus Lepidus, Octavian defeated his great uncle’s assassins, dividing the Republic into three parts. Then Octavian conquered his former allies and assumed sole rule of the Republic in roughly 31 B.C. Over the next three decades, Octavian enacted a series of laws that made Rome an empire. Deifying his great uncle and renaming himself Augustus, Octavian brought down the ancient world’s greatest Republic and rebirthed it an empire. Brilliant and ruthless, Octavian did so in a way that created stability and positioned the realm for growth—creating a 200-year period of unprecedented peace and strength known as the Pax Romana. The unified empire lasted more than 400 years, and its successor empire in the East lasted more than 1,000 more, finally collapsing in 1453 A.D.
Octavian is likely the most successful political leader in history. He was perhaps our world’s richest and most powerful man. And his legacy permeates everything from the modern political structure of Europe to our calendar, where the month of August bears his name. Despite all this, the single most well-known historical passage about Octavian regards him as little more than a footnote. That passage reads:
In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. (Luke 2:1-5)
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That baby was born to an outcast teenager and her carpenter husband. He came into this world in a dirty stable in an unimportant province without fanfare or notice. Because of a prophecy, he would eventually be hunted by the King of that region—thousands slaughtered in his pursuit—and live as a refugee in a foreign land. When he returned, he would grow up in obscurity, spending more than a decade practicing…
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