Rome's First Emperor wearing the Corona Civica
Though Augustus is the villain of my novel, Lily of the Nile, I do have a bit of a soft spot for the old tyrant. It seems only fitting that we wish him a happy birthday on this September 23rd.
You may wonder why August, the month actually named after him, is not also the month of his birth. This is because he was a little bit of an obsessive creeper.
He didn’t want to be remembered as having done something so mundane as be born. Everyone is born. He wanted to be remembered for the month in which he defeated Cleopatra and drove her to her death. And that was the month of Sextilis, now August.