Octavia the Elder

Octavia the Elder (lived 1st century BC), also known as Octavia Major or Octavia Maior (Maior is Latin for the Elder) was the daughter of the Roman governor and senator Gaius Octavius by his first wife, Ancharia. She was also an elder half-sister to Octavia the Younger and Roman Emperor Augustus.[1] Little is known of her life. Plutarch only knows one daughter Octavia of Gaius Octavius and confuses Octavia the Elder with Octavia the Younger.[2]

Marriage and Descendants

Octavia the Elder was married to Sextus Appuleius (I). They had one son, who was also named Sextus Appuleius (II) and was ordinary consul in 29 BC with his half-uncle, Augustus.[3] Through her son, Sextus Appuleius (II), she had a grandson, named Sextus Appuleius (III). Octavia the Elder's last known descendant was her great-grandson, also named Sextus Appuleius (IV), through her grandson and his wife, Fabia Numantina.[4]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Suetonius, Life of Augustus 4.1
  2. ↑ Plutarch, Life of Antony 31.1-2 and 87
  3. ↑ Inscriptions from Pergamon 2, 419 = Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes 4, 323 = Wilhelm Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci inscriptiones selectae 462.
  4. ↑ Syme, R., Augustan Aristocracy (1989), pp. 316-8

References