Gnaeus Octavius (consul 165 BC)
[i] Its first attested member was a Gaius Octavius Rufus, whose two sons founded the two branches of the gens, but the second one, to which later belonged Octavian (the future first Roman emperor Augustus), received much less honours during the Republic.
[6] The date of 170 is also possible, but modern scholars favour 172 due to Octavius' connection with the Popilli Laenates, who won consulships in 173 and 172.
[11] However, they also told in each city that they knew who were reluctant to support Rome, which created "anxiety" according to the historian Polybius, who was a direct witness of these events.
[10] A federal council of the Achaean League (the dominant state of the Peloponnese) was called at Aegium to receive Octavius and Popillius.
[10] Despite the harsh comment of Polybius on Octavius, he was apparently appreciated in the Peloponnesian cities of Argos and Elis as inscriptions honouring him have been found there.
N. G. L. Hammond considers that Hostilius and his legates' tactics of threatening even the moderates "must have offset any goodwill which the senatorial decrees were designed to excite".
[22] In view of Octavius' rash behaviour in Greece, John Briscoe thinks that he belonged to a group of senators, whom he calls the "Fulvians", that dominated senatorial politics during most of the 170s.
[24][25] Upon his return to Rome in 169, Octavius was appointed decemvir sacris faciundis, a priest in charge of the Sibylline Books, for which knowledge of Greek culture and religion was essential.
[30] While the consul Paullus continued from there to Phila in Pieria, Octavius departed to meet with his fleet at Oreus, on the western tip of Euboea.
[33] As Paullus could not break the front on the Elpeus river, he devised a ruse by ordering his military tribune Scipio Nasica to move south and feign an embarkment at Heracleum, where the fleet was stationed.
The goal was to make Perseus believe that Scipio Nasica was about to land behind his lines, whereas he actually marched around Mt Olympus during the night in order to flank the Macedonian army.
[39][40] This city was famous for its refined fabrics, which Octavius looted as they were later listed in the triumphal booty of Paullus (the first time luxury textile was mentioned in a triumph).
[45][17] Olga Palagia has suggested that Octavius commissioned the Victory of Samothrace, a famous statue now in the Louvre in Paris, in order to commemorate his capture of Perseus in the island, therefore imitating Paullus who built a monument in Delphi.
[46] Most of the Roman officers in Macedonia were prorogued in their command in 167, including Paullus and Octavius, in order to implement the settlement of Perseus' former kingdom.
[50] Once in Rome, the senate granted a triumph to the three commanders of the war: Paullus, Octavius, and Lucius Anicius Gallus, another praetor who had fought in Illyria.
It was at this time that Octavius also built the extravagant Porticus Octavia, which was restored by Augustus but was destroyed in the Great Fire of Rome, before the death of Pliny the Elder.
[57][58][59] Octavius was elected consul in 165, alongside the patrician Titus Manlius Torquatus, therefore becoming a homo novus, the first member of his family to reach the consulship.
The first one reproduces a senatus consultum that followed a convocation of the senate by the consul Octavius, which deals with the royal lands that Perseus once held in Magnesia.
The regent, Lysias (on behalf of the young king Antiochus V Eupator), allowed this as he had little appetite for a war with Rome, but this act was deeply unpopular.
[65] Various historians have attempted to explain what happened here, although most think that Polybius is leaving something out or slanting the story in some way, as the Senate "in a fit of insanity, publicly released the avowed murderer of their chief legate, rewarding Leptines' open defiance of Rome's will"[65] seems unbelievable without some additional reason.
