After all the teasers, I watched the pilot & found it typically Disneyfied. It takes historical characters of late first century BCE and early 1st century CE and weaves a majestic tapestry of fabrication. It then hangs it on a few pegs of historical truth and expects you to swallow the whole story as fact, when it's mostly fiction. Some of this lack of fidelity to history has been pointed out by others already, so I shall not belabor the point. Having the adequate & comely Santiago Cabrera play Octavian or Octavianus, NOT Octavius! is a stretch. The future first emperor of Rome was 18 not 28 in 44 BCE. Given the state of cultural/historical illiteracy today, I am not surprised by 'Empire.' Afterall, it's Disney/ABC and not the History channel or PBS.
Review of Empire
