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With Octavian's age, and reports of sickliness as a child, contact must have been limited. Octavian was coming into adulthood just as Caesar was embroiled in Gaul and in the Civil War that followed, and there certainly wouldn't have been much time for camaraderie. While young Octavian was certainly noticed by Caesar at some point, evidence of direct involvement is conflicting. He delivered her eulogy, and like many other young political hopefuls, this was the first opportunity to make a mark on both the aristocracy and the common masses alike. Whatever the case, some evidence suggests that opponents like Antony may have used this surname against Octavian.Īt the age of twelve (51 BC), Octavian's grandmother and sister of Caesar, died, ushering him into his first major public appearance. Suetonius even reports that he came into a statue of Octavian as a boy bearing the inscription Thurinus, which he promptly gifted to the Emperor Hadrian, who prized it highly. This, Suetonius claims, either represented Octavian's historical familial roots, or the place where his father bested remnants of slave armies while he served as governor of Macedonia. Suetonius claims that Octavian carried another surname as a youth, Thurinus. Later opponents, Mark Antony included, attacked his heritage by claiming his ancestors were freedmen and moneychangers, not the sort of lineage that one might expect from a rising star in Roman politics. Despite his relation to Caesar, there was some questionable lineage throughout his family. There were other first nephews, but Caesar didn't seem to hold them in as high regard as the young Octavian, though one, Q. Atius Balbus and Julia, sister of Julius Caesar, making him the great nephew of the dictator. His father was married to Atia, the daughter of a somewhat obscure Senator, M.
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His father had reached the rank of praetor before dying when Octavian was a boy of only 4 years old, just as Caesar was launching his war in Gaul. He was the son of a 'new man' bearing the same name from Velitrae in Latium. Gaius Octavius was born on 23 September 63 BC, and though of distant relation to Caesar, his eventual rise to prominence was unexpected. His reinstitution of conservative policy and wide scale public improvements helped to not only bring Rome out of the ashes of a century of civil war, but established Augustus as the unassailable and unchallenged ruler of the Roman world for nearly half a century. Whilst Augustus was a necessity to the success of the new imperial government, veiled as a continuation of Republican ideals, without his other contributions, its continuing success may have been in jeopardy. The contribution of Augustus to the consolidation and stabilization of the ' Empire' from a governing and military perspective was immense, but the legacy of the man is perhaps best exemplified in his contribution to public works and infrastructure.