The bitter cold of winter gradually receded, and the first signs of spring appeared. He and Agrippa had been in Illyrcium for four – another source says six – months when, one evening, Octavius was approached to receive a freedman just arrived from Rome.189 He had travelled as fast as he could under direct instructions of the boy’s mother, Atia. He brought a letter from her. In ‘excitement and dismay’ the man handed over the document.¹⁹⁰ The young man read it with growing sadness and increasing concern. His great uncle had been murdered.¹⁹¹ Rome was in chaos.

Now everything would change.