In 53 BC, he accompanied his friend, Appius Claudius Pulcher, governor of Cilicia, to his province, but returned to Rome early in order to run for the office of curule aedile.
[citation needed] Elected for the year 50 BC, he and his colleague, Marcus Caelius, asked Cicero, another governor of Cilicia, to send them panthers, to be displayed in the games the aediles had to hold at Rome.
Octavius and Libo defeated Caesar's fleet under Publius Cornelius Dolabella on the Dalmatian coast, and managed to trap fifteen Caesarian cohorts under Gaius Antonius on the island of Curicta, where they were starved into submission.
[2] After Libo departed with the Liburnian fleet, Octavius obtained some further successes, securing the defection of the island of Issa to his side, but failed to persuade the Roman citizens at Salona to do the same.
In 48 BC, Octavius reappeared in Dalmatia, where he gathered a powerful following from Pompeian fugitives in the aftermath of Pompey's defeat at Pharsalus, and from defectors among the native population.