Octavii

The Octavii were a Roman gens, most famous for producing Gaius Octavius and his son Augustus (himself originally named Gaius Octavius, later Gaius Octavius Thurinus). Suetonius writes of them (Life of Augustus, 1-4):

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There are many indications that the Octavian family was in days of old a distinguished one at Velitrae; for not only was a street in the most frequented part of town long ago called Octavian, but an altar was shown there besides, consecrated by an Octavius. This man was leader in a war with a neighbouring town, and when news of a sudden onset of the enemy was brought to him just as he chanced to be sacrificing to Mars, he snatched the entrails of the victim from the fire and offered them up half raw; and thus he went forth to battle, and returned victorious. There was, besides, a decree of the people on record, providing that for the future too the entrails should be offered to Mars in the same way, and the rest of the victims be handed over to the Octavii.Fact|date=March 2008

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The family was admitted to the senate by king Tarquinius Priscus among the lesser gentes, and was later enrolled by Servius Tullius among the patricians; in the course of time it returned to the ranks of the plebeians and, after a long interval, was restored to patrician rank by Julius Caesar. The first of the house to be elected by the people to a magistracy was Gaius Rufus, who became quaestor. He was the father of Gnaeus and Gaius, from whom two branches of the Octavian family were derived, of very different standing; for Gnaeus and all his scions in turn held the highest offices, but Gaius and his progeny, whether from chance or choice, remained in the equestrian order down to the father of Augustus.

Augustus's great-grandfather served in Sicily in the second Punic war as tribune of the soldiers under the command of Lucius Aemilius Papus. His grandfather, content with the offices of a municipal town and possessing an abundant income, lived to a peaceful old age. This is the account given by others; Augustus himself merely writes that he came of an old and wealthy equestrian family, in which his own father was the first to become a senator. However, his political rival and sometime brother-in-law Marcus Antonius taunted him with his great-grandfather, saying that he was a freedman and a rope-maker from the country about Thurii, while his grandfather was a money-changer. The father was certainly known as Gaius Octavius Thurinus.Fact|date=March 2008 It is very possible that the branch of the emperor Augustus had no blood connection with the senior branch (described below) and was in fact descended from a freedman of the first or second consul.Fact|date=March 2008

The senior branch

A Gnaeus Octavius, first of the family to rise to the consulship, built the Porticus Octavia in 168 BC. Another Gnaeus Octavius, probably his son, became consul in 128 BC; it is not clear if this was the man who was Tribune of the Plebs removed by his former friend Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. The Gnaeus Octavius, who was consul in 87 BC and was responsible for a massacre of Roman citizens, was probably son of the consul of 128 BC and grandson of the consul of 165 BC. Another Gnaeus Octavius became consul in 76 BC, followed by a Lucius Octavius in 75 BC.

Possible relations

In Imperial Rome, a Gaius Octavius Laenas, apparently born a Popillius Laenas, became suffect consul in 33 AD. A Servius Octavius Laenas Pontianus became consul in 131 AD. Other persons who used the name are not clearly related to the family.