Octavian's Rome (TWR2-IA faction)
Honour, Courage, Legacy
Shortly before his death, Julius Caesar adopted young Octavian as his son and heir. The Senate expressed little interest in observing the dead dictator’s will, but when Mark Antony’s anger and thirst for power boiled over into a direct attack on Brutus, the Senate took note of Octavian’s popularity with his father’s troops. Fearing a power-play from Marc Antony, they empowered him with the legal authority to intervene.
The senate then attempted to put Caesar’s legions into the hands of his very killers, but the soldiers’ loyalty to Octavian dictated events. Their fealty enabled Octavian to press ahead and enact edicts which outlawed his father’s murderers, reward the troops and proclaim himself Consul. Octavian sensed the precariousness of his position however, and met with Mark Antony and Lepidus to form the three-way dictatorship known as the Second Triumvirate.
Though the lands he acquired emphasised his junior status, it was Octavian who marched with Mark Antony to confront Caesar’s killers – Brutus and Cassius – in the east. Victory at Philippi legitimised the Triumvirate and led to a new distribution of territory from which Octavian benefited at the passive Lepidus’ expense.
These new territories provide ample resource to feed and fund Octavian’s loyal veterans, and his control of Rome – with a Senate purged of dissenters – places him in a prime position to manipulate Marc Antony and Lepidus to his own ends. The time is now ripe for Octavian to realise Caesar’s legacy for himself!