Perhaps the greatest irony of the terminal Republican period is that, in an era dominated by the sword, a succession of inspired military leaders - Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar - failed to impose a viable alternative to the Republican constitution. Conversely, for all the martial qualities implied in the name he bore after his adoption, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus never won a set-piece battle in his life but it was he who laid the foundations for an imperial system that dominated the Mediterranean world for centuries after his death.
Two women had been devoted to Antony; had he followed Fulvia's lead he might have been master of the Roman world; had he remained faithful to Octavia he might have divided it. Instead he chose Cleopatra, whose only devotion to him was as the instrument of her ambition; and her he would follow, and follow to his ruin, because he loved her. 'That is what redeems his memory, that at the end he did lose half the world for love.'