A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Octavia
O.
OCTAVIA, Daughter to Caius Octavius, and Sister of Augustus Cæsar, was married first to Claudius Marcellus, who was Consul in the year 50 B. C.
She had by him two children, a boy and a girl, before his death, which happened a little before the war of Perusia, when he left her pregnant with a third. By the Roman laws, widows were forbid to marry within ten months after their husbands decease. This statute, however, Octavia was exempted from by a decree of the senate. The public welfare required it. The people of Rome had but too great cause to fear, that Marc Antony and Augustus would quarrel, and so prolong the civil war, if not prevented by some powerful mediator. Antony was then a widower, and nothing promised so fair for compassing such a happy event, as his marriage with Octavia. All imaginable dispatch was therefore used to bring it to a conclusion, which was done even before the lady was brought to bed. It was the general persuasion that Octavia, whose exquisite beauty was heightened by gravity and prudence, would be the means of a most happy and lasting peace. Their nuptials were solemnized, in 714.
Three years after this, peace was concluded with Pompey's son. Augustus continued in Italy, and Antony went with Octavia into Greece. The winter he spent with her at Athens; and being exasperated by some false report against Augustus, set sail for Italy; and being refused admittance into the harbour of Brundusium, he went ashore at Tarentum, and sent Octavia to Augustus. She met her brother by the way, and had a conference with him and his friends Agrippa and Mecænas; when she conjured him, in the most pathetic terms, not to let her, from being the most happy of her sex, become the most wretched. "For now," says she, "the whole world looks upon me as related to two emperors, to the one as a wife, to the other as a sister; but, if pernicious counsels should prevail, and a war break out, it is uncertain which of you would be the conqueror; but my fate either way, would be miserable. This discourse wrought so powerfully on Cæsar, that he went to Tarentum quite pacified, and the interview between him and Antony was attended with a thousand protestations of inviolable friendship.
Antony returning to the east, left Octavia in Italy. Some time after this, resolving to make him a visit, she set out on her journey for that purpose, but on the road met with letters from him, desiring her to stay at Athens for him, which she accordingly did; but finding it in vain, returned to Rome, and would not be prevailed on to quit his palace, but took the same care of every thing as if he had been the best of husbands. She would by no means consent, that the injurious treatment she met with from Antony should occasion a civil war. In this disposition she remained in the house till she was ordered to leave it by Antony himself, who at the same time sent her a divorce; then indeed she burst into tears, because she saw she should be considered as one of the causes of the war; since Augustus had consented to her going into the east after Antony, in the hopes that she would meet with some signal ill usage from him, which he knew would be considered by the Roman people as a just cause for him to renew the war. The admiration in which they beheld Octavia's glorious conduct in doing all the good offices in her power to her husband's children and friends, without shewing the least resentment for his base usage of her, was of great prejudice to him; and thus, even against her will, she exposed him prodigiously to the animosity of the Romans, who both hated and despised him, when they saw him prefer to her a woman of Cleopatra's abandoned character. His infatuation was the more surprising to those who had seen the latter, as Octavia was infinitely her superior in virtue, wisdom and beauty.
Cleopatra herself, whatever good opinion she might entertain of her own charms, yet dreaded those of Octavia; and therefore had recourse to all possible artifices to prevent her from coming near him. She assured him it would be impossible for her to live if he should abandon her. She represented to him, that it was enough for Octavia to be his lawful wife, whilst she (Cleopatra, queen of so mighty a nation) was content to be called his concubine, which she would yet submit to, provided he did not plunge her into despair by his absence; and, to prevent so fatal a stroke, she attended him at his last overthrow at Actium; though, when she had accompanied him as far as Ephesus, Antony's friends advised him to send her back to Egypt: but she, fearing lest Octavia should once more reconcile her brother with her husband, bribed a man, who persuaded Antony to take her along with him whithersoever he might go.
After Antony's death, 731, fortune seemed to flatter Octavia with the utmost felicity she could expect or desire. The son she had by her first husband was now about twelve years of age, a most accomplished youth, of a chearful disposition, and fine genius. When he was of a proper age, Augustus married him to his own daughter, and considered him as the presumptive heir of the empire. However Octavia had armed herself with fortitude under all the injurious treatment of Antony, yet the loss of this son was infinitely heavier and more insupportable. She sunk under it, and remained ever after inconsolable. Seneca tells us, that she would not allow any body to offer her the least consolation, nor could be prevailed with to take the least diversion. Her whole mind and soul was fixed on this single object, and such was her deportment through the latter part of life, as if she had been at a funeral. She appeared in her weeds before her children and grand children; a circumstance which greatly displeased her family, as if she was totally bereaved, whilst they were living and well.
Seneca likewise adds, that she rejected all poems wrote in honour of Marcellus's memory, and compliments of every kind. This however must be taken with some grains of allowance, at least if the story be true, which has never yet been questioned, that Virgil, reading that admirable eulogium on this youth, in the conclusion of the sixth Æneid, to Augustus, when she was with him, they both burst into tears, and Virgil was forced to inform them the book was near ending, otherwise they would not let him go on. It is said, likewise, that Octavia fainted away, at the repetition of those words, Tu Marcellus eris: and that it was with the greatest difficulty she was recovered; after which she rewarded the poet with no less than ten sesterces; that is, as some compute it, 78l. 2s. 6d. for each verse, of which there are twenty-six in the whole.
Octavia, according to Dio, died, 744, ten years before Christ, leaving two daughters by Marc Antony, Antonia major, and Antonia minor, the elder married Domitius Ænobarbus, and the younger Drusus, brother of Tiberius. Octavia's eldest daughter by Marcellus was first married to Agrippa, and afterwards to Antony, youngest son of Marc Antony by Fulvia. It is said that Augustus dedicated a temple and some porticos to the memory of his sister Octavia.