With the victory at Actium, one man drew a line under a century of civil wars. The senators were stripped of their power, and the will of an individual became, at least theoretically, law. The empire that Augustus shaped from the ruins of the Republic was complex and filled with internal contradictions. Nevertheless, it lasted for 500 years in the Latin West and 1500 years in the Greek East. The second part of Michael Sommer's Roman History tells of the emperors who ruled this empire, but also of the people who lived within it. It develops a broad panorama, closely tied to the sources and incorporating material culture, and shows how the Mediterranean world grew into a unity under the Caesars, without losing its social, economic, and cultural peculiarities. Includes a glossary of technical terms and an index.