The gens Octavia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, which was raised to patrician status by Caesar during the first century BC.
Over the following two centuries, the Octavii held many of the highest offices of the state; but the most celebrated of the family was Gaius Octavius, the grandnephew and adopted son of Caesar, who was proclaimed Augustus by the senate in 27 BC.
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.
[2]Towards the end of the Republic, it became fashionable for noble families to trace their origin to the gods and heroes of olden time, and accordingly in Suetonius we also read that the Octavii received the franchise from Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth King of Rome, and were enrolled among the patricians by his successor, Servius Tullius.