Gaius Octavius

Gaius Octavius came from Velitrae, an old equestrian family with money but no senatorial pedigree — a novus homo in Rome's eyes. His grandfather had fought as a military tribune in Sicily during the Second Punic War; his father served as a municipal magistrate and lived to old age. Octavius himself rose through Roman politics in the early first century BC, but died in 59 BC before reaching the consulship. What he left behind mattered more than what he achieved: his son became Augustus, the first emperor, and through that son's marriages and adoptions, Octavius's blood ran through Tiberius, Cal…