Today, however, he is habitually described as Octavian (until the date when he assumed the designation Augustus). Although it would have been normal to add "Octavianus" (with reference to his original family name), he preferred not to do so. Under the name of Gaius Julius Caesar he next secured official recognition as Caesar's adoptive son. When the consuls who commanded the Senate's forces lost their lives, Octavius's soldiers compelled the Senate to confer a vacant consulship on him. The Senate, encouraged by Cicero, broke with Antony, called upon Octavius for aid (granting him the rank of senator in spite of his youth), and joined the campaign of Mutina (Modena) against Antony, who was compelled to withdraw to Gaul. Cicero, the famous orator who was one of Rome's principal elder statesmen, hoped to make use of him but underestimated his abilities.Ĭelebrating public games, instituted by Caesar, to ingratiate himself with the city populace, Octavius succeeded in winning considerable numbers of the dictator's troops to his own allegiance. Caesar's assassins, Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, ignored him and withdrew to the east. Mark Antony (Marcus Antonius), Caesar's chief lieutenant, who had taken possession of his papers and assets and had expected that he himself would be the principal heir, refused to hand over any of Caesar's funds, forcing Octavius to pay the late dictator's bequests to the Roman populace from such resources as he could raise. He was only 18 when, against the advice of his stepfather and others, he decided to take up this perilous inheritance and proceeded to Rome. Returning to Italy, he was told that Caesar in his will had adopted him as his son and had made him his chief personal heir. He was at Apollonia (now in Albania), completing his academic and military studies when, in 44 BC, he learned that Julius Caesar had been murdered. In 46 BC he accompanied Caesar, now dictator, in his triumphal procession after his victory in Africa over his opponents in the Civil War and in the following year, in spite of ill health, he joined the dictator in Spain. Three or four years later he received the coveted membership of the board of priests ( pontifices). At age 12 he made his debut by delivering the funeral speech for his grandmother Julia. Gaius Octavius's mother, Atia, was the daughter of Julia, the sister of Julius Caesar and it was Caesar who launched the young Octavius in Roman public life. His father, who died in 59 BC, had been the first of the family to become a Roman senator and was elected to the high annual office of the praetorship, which ranked second in the political hierarchy to the consulship. Gaius Octavius was born on September 23, 63 BC, of a prosperous family that had long been settled at Velitrae (Velletri), southeast of Rome. With unlimited patience, skill, and efficiency, he overhauled every aspect of Roman life and brought durable peace and prosperity to the Greco-Roman world. His autocratic regime is known as the principate because he was the princeps, the first citizen, at the head of that array of outwardly revived republican institutions that alone made his autocracy palatable. Also called Augustus Caesar or (until 27 BC) Octavian, original name Gaius Octavius, adopted name Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus first Roman emperor, following the republic, which had been finally destroyed by the dictatorship of Julius Caesar, his great-uncle and adoptive father.
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