Unfortunately he married the queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, which was a disgraceful to Rome. Augustus raised an army of his own to fight Antony. The battle took place in Actium, and Augustus won the battle. In addition, Egypt was also conquered by Augustus and it became a new territory of Rome. "Augustus's overall policy was to keep the military establishment at the minimum necessary to ensure peace within the empire and guard the frontiers" (Scarre, 24). The senate realized Augustus' power and invited him to become the Empire of Rome and the senate did whatever he told them to do. Meanwhile, Augustus' role of emperor was to never call himself emperor. He referred to himself as "the first citizen". In this way Augustus presented himself as an ordinary Roman citizen doing his duty to the state. During his reign, he developed a fiscal policy, which made the economy stronger by collecting taxes. He believed that people's fortunes were going down the drain "thus private individuals were able to save nothing or almost nothing because, in addition to the other exactions, they were obliged to find slaves for the navy, buying them if they had none, and senators had to mend the roads at their own expenses. Only those who bore arms got rich" (Millar and Sega, 109). At first, the tax system was only approved by the senate. The tax which was collected would flow directly into private and public landed property, rebuild structures, census and contribute five percent tax to manumission of slaves (Millar and Sega, 110). These tax are only applied to citizens which the fiscal system had benefits for them, by the guarantee of the security of property. .

             The tax that was collected was also contributed to rebuild the Roman Empire. Augustus claimed he had rebuilt eighty-two different structures, including roads, aqueducts, temples and buildings with remarkable work of art created a classical style.