From civil war to the Principate
After Caesar’s assassination in 44 BCE, Octavian formed the Second Triumvirate with Mark Antony and Lepidus. Years of civil war culminated in his victory over Antony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 BCE. In 27 BCE, the Senate granted him the name Augustus. Republican offices survived, but military command, patronage, and successive grants of authority concentrated power in his hands.
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.
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.