A great-uncle’s name and a civil war
Gaius Octavius was born in 63 BCE to a family of provincial standing; his great-uncle was Julius Caesar. Caesar’s assassination in 44 BCE left the eighteen-year-old heir to a name, an inheritance, and a war. Octavian formed the Second Triumvirate with Marcus Antonius and Lepidus, and years of proscriptions and civil war culminated in his victory over Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 BCE.
From Octavian to Augustus
In 27 BCE the Senate granted Octavian the name Augustus, marking the formal, if carefully staged, restoration of the Republic. Republican offices survived in form, but military command, patronage, and successive grants of authority concentrated real power in his hands. The Principate he built would outlast him by centuries.
The problem of succession
Without a biological son, Augustus repeatedly rearranged his family’s future. His daughter Julia married Marcellus, then Agrippa, and finally Tiberius. Augustus adopted his grandsons Gaius and Lucius Caesar, but both died before him. In 4 CE he adopted Tiberius and Agrippa Postumus; Tiberius in turn adopted Germanicus. Postumus was later exiled. These arrangements made adoption as important as descent to the dynasty’s survival. Augustus died at Nola in August 14 CE, and Tiberius, his last surviving adopted son, succeeded him as Rome’s second emperor. See how Tiberius became emperor for the fuller, sourced account of the succession.
Historical sources
Tacitus, Annals 1.2–3
An account of the concentration of power and Augustus’s successive choices of heirs.
Suetonius, Augustus 63–65
Marriages, children, adoption, and family scandal.
Cassius Dio, Roman History 53–56
The constitutional settlement and the final decades of Augustus’s rule.
Portrait: Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5. Cropped and colour-treated for display.