I've recently read "Caesar's Legacy" which (to my surprise) I found not at all about Caesar, but about how Octavian acted after Caesar's death. And an unpleasant story it is, surely!

Would it be going to far to simply say that Caesar's intense efforts to more or less play by the laws was, by the simple act of his assassination, completely invalidated as far as the Triumvirs were concerned? The ease with which Octavian and Antony (and actually, Antony himself from almost the moment of Caesar's death) start extra-constitutional manouverings is breathtaking. It's as if the law is no longer observed even in the breach, after 60 years of awful things happening but people at least PRETENDING to a constitutional basis.

What's the most astonishing is that, after the Triumviral years, that Augustus apparently decided to return to a rule of law. The more I learn about what followed Caesar's murder, the more fascinating it becomes.