Unfortunately, I lied unknowingly. There's almost nothing in here about the Alexandrian intellectual revolution, and there is a last gasp of Republican revolt. Sorry.
An excerpt from A Comprehensive History of the Modern World
by Antonius Gracchus
The Reign of Gaius Octavianus Caesar, 1st Emperor of the Caesarian Empire
1 A.E—23 A.E. (43 B.C.-- 20 B.C.)
Gaius Octavianus Caesar, commonly known as Octavian, was the first emperor of the Caesarians, having inherited his empire from his adoptive father, Julius Caesar. He is also one of the most controversial of the Caesarian emperors; on the one hand, he built infrastructure, made Rome one of the most beautiful cities in the world, added the provinces of Germania and Danieca to the Empire, and fully centralized the administration of Caesaria: on the other hand, he allowed what was but a small slave revolt to become a fully fledged Britannian state, he allowed the Empire to be humiliated by their weaker southern counterpart, ruled over a terrifying police state, and slaughtered an estimated 300,000 Caesarian citizens out of crippling paranoia.
Octavian first rose to power in 43 B.C., after the death of Julius Caesar at Rhodes. According to Caesar's will, his empire was to be split between his adopted son Octavian and his real son Ptolemy XV Philometer Philopater Caesar, commonly known as Caesarion ("Little Caesar"). The line was to be "...where the Hellespont intrudes between the two great continents; Asia and Europa." Thusly, Caesarion received Bosporus, Syria, Judea, Africanus, and Aigyptos (in those days known as Kemet) for his Romano-Kemetic Empire. Octavian received Hellas, Italia, Hispania, and Gallica.
The first months of Octavian's reign were marked by chaos as Germanians invaded in the north and Hispanians invaded in the west. These two invasions were quickly put down by Octavian's two most trusted generals; Lepidus and Calvinus. Octavian himself traveled to Kemet, where he assisted Caesarion's regent and mother Cleopatra in crushing Marcus Antonius' Republican revolt. After this show of good will, he returned to Rome, where he declared (his first legal decree) that he and his father were both to be worshiped as gods-on-earth. While this caused rumblings among the clergy, used to getting their way, Octavian quickly crushed this with a few well-placed executions. Only a few days later, he decreed that any who wrote a tome criticizing any Caesarian emperor would be slaughtered, and backed this up with the killing of several well-known writers. This would later lead to the exodus of the intelligentsia from Caesaria; many, including the later-to-be-famed architect Vitruvius, traveled to Alexandria, capital of the Romano-Kemetic Empire, where they contributed to the Alexandrian intellectual revolution. This deprived the Caesarian intellectual scene of its leading lights and left it shabby for many years, as compared to Kemet.
After consolidating his empire, Octavian named Lepidus as governor of Gallica, Calvinus as governor of Hispania, and Gaius Carrinas, a former general, as governor of Hellas-Italia. Octavian then prepared his new army for revenge on the Germanians who had brought such pain to his new empire just a few weeks before, increasing the 10 legions to 18. But before he could attack Germania, he needed to test his new army; and a perfect target waited just across the Gallican Sea.
Britannia. During his Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar had crossed the Gallican Sea and landed on the windswept island, establishing a foothold at Cantium. By invading Britannia, Octavian would accomplish two goals; testing his new army, and besting his late father's achievements. And so, in 40 B.C., Octavian commanded Lepidus, his favorite general, to prepare a fleet and attack Britannia. Lepidus, though aging, quickly followed his master's orders, and sailed across the channel in August. There, he swiftly defeated the Cantici and the rest of the Celtic tribes of southern Britannia. However, he was stopped by the mountains of Pictland, leading to Caesar demoting him from governor of Gallica in favor of Quintus Pedius, the deaf son of the late Senator of the same name.* Britannia was quickly turned into a sort of "work-camp province", where Octavian sent those who displeased him to work on the massive farms and mines Quintus Pedius established after coming to power. Lepidus was the first to go there, and the first to die in 39 B.C. In the same year, a group of Greek Republican bandits were sent to Britannia; among them was Antonius Phaedos, the future leader of Demokratos Britannia.
In 38 B.C., with his new army's power proven, Octavian assumed command of eight legions personally, and marched towards Germania. The Germanians were completely surprised by this attack, and though there was some resistance, they fell before the Roman army's might. After Octavian's forces won the land up to the base of the Daniecan peninsula, he was faced with a choice. Should his mighty army march east and continue subjugating the Germanians, or should the march north and face what surprises the mysterious Daniecans had to offer. He chose the latter option. Unfortunately, there were few riches to be found in Danieca; only gibberish-shouting, half-frozen tribal warriors and their petty feuds. Nonetheless, Danieca was officially added to the Empire in early 37 B.C. The two new provinces were given to two relatively unknown soldiers in his army; a man today only known as Tiberius was given Germania, while Danieca was given to the centurion Cassius Andronicus. In the late part of that year, Gaius Caesar returned to Gallica, where he expected to find praise; instead, chaos waited for him at home.
After Caesar left, the afore-mentioned Antonius Phaedos found his chance to regain his power. Meeting secretly with the other members of the massive slave force in Britannia, he developed a plot to overthrow Quintus Pedius and the legion garrisoning Britannia and establish an independent Demokratos, or people-ruled state, based upon the old Athenian system. And in July of 38 B.C., they carried out their plan, rising up in a massive, province-wide revolution. Quintus Pedius was captured and hung from his own palace's window, while the sedentary legionnaires of the 5th Legion were surprised and mostly killed, though some escaped. Many argue that the resulting inaction taken by the governors of Caesarea are truly what led to the unmolested rule of Phaedos. However, I will place the blame squarely on Caesar's inadequate qualities as a leader and commander. Upon returning to Gallica, he, learning of the attack, immediately raised a fleet and took four legions, expecting the battle to be easy. However, a huge storm blew up on the Channel, and sunk much of his hastily-drawn-up fleet. 6,300 legionnaires survived, nonetheless, and landed near Londinium in May of 36 B.C. At first, it seemed as though they would be uncontested in their march to the capital; there were no Britannian troops to oppose them, and the city was abandoned when they reached it. However, it was but a trap. As Octavian's army marched into the capital's center, the city was quickly surrounded by 7,000 Britannian soldiers, led personally by Phaedos. They charged upon the city, where the legions were paralyzed and trapped in its small streets. The legionnaires, however, knew this was a battle to the death, and so fought even more ferociously then they already would have. Finally, after several hours of battle, Octavian and a band of about 500 soldiers broke through the Britannian lines and retreated all the way back to the navy, where they beat a hasty retreat to Gallica. A few months later, the 5,800 heads of the remaining legionnaires were sent to Octavian via an itinerant merchant. Octavian, enraged, drew his sword and slaughtered the merchant. He never, however, would attempt to reconquer Britannia again.
Phaedos quickly established a Demokratia, where he was soon voted “Protos Metaxy Ison”, or first among equals. The Demokratos of Britannia began the construction of a massive wall spanning its northern border, so as to keep the Pictish tribes away. Surprisingly, the Demokratia had the widespread support of the only half-civilized tribes of Britainnia, in that if they consented to Demokratian rule, they would both have a voice in and be left alone by Londinium. An admirable solution.
Octavian's reign proceeded smoothly after this humiliation; Germannia and Danieca were slowly Romanized, while the rest of the provinces were quite quiescent. However, in 26 B.C., events in Romano-Kemet drew Octavian's attention southwards. Cleopatra, Caesarion's mother, had recently died in Alexandria, and Caesarion had taken full control of his empire with a will. In the east, the Parthians were still quite weak after the civil war of 32 B.C., but were rapidly strengthening. Caesarion, seeking to head this off by surrounding the Persians, invaded southern Arabia and pushed his way north through the desert until he was at the border of Parthia. The Parthian emperor Pacorus II, knowing he could not weather a Kemetic advance alone, sent desperate requests for help to Rome. Octavian, eager to regain some provinces of the original Roman Republic, agreed. On September 12 in 26 B.C., Caesarian troops landed in Bospurus. Even this early in the war, the Parthians did not live up to their side of the deal, refusing to declare war against the enemy they had asked Caesar to help them against! As such, Caesarion was free to divert his phalanxes to Bospurus. Even so, Octavian made much progress in the first few months, conquering all the way up to Syria. There, however, he was met with a steel wall of Kemetic spears and forced back to northern Bospurus, where he would fight an increasingly desperate campaign against Caesarion until 24 B.C., when he was forced out of Kemet and sailed back to Hellas. Just a few weeks later, Kemetic troops landed in Sicilia, Sardinia, Corsica, Crete, Rhodes, and Cyprus, all territories of Caesarea. They easily overwhelmed the tiny garrisons there. Octavian was helpless to intervene, having had his army reduced to only six legions by the recent war. Finally, in March of 23 B.C., Caesarion landed in the Pelopennese, where he was greeted by cheering Hellenes finally liberated from Octavian's dictatorial rule. Octavian attempted to stop him, but was pushed further and further back until, finally, in 20 B.C., in the mountains of Macedon, he was accidentally slain by an arrow volley from his own troops. Tiberius, governor of Germannia, quickly took control of the Empire and offered a settlement to Caesarion, giving him Hellas and the islands in exchange for peace. The Romano-Kemetic emperor graciously accepted and returned to Alexandria, where he basked in the glory of an enlightened court.
Thus ended the reign of Gaius Octavianus Caesar.
Notes:
*It may seem improbable, but with his late father's connections, it's perfectly possible.
