Octavian Before Octavian
Emperors of Rome
La Trobe University
4.8 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 9 June 2026
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Before Augustus reached his great heights as Emperor, before he was even Octavian, he was Giaus Octavius, born to a relatively humble family and giving no indication of the greatness he would achieve. While his father had a reasonably successful political and military career, it’s almost certain that he wouldn’t have become princeps at all without the important connections provided by his mother, Atia.
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Episode CCLVII (257)
Guest: Dr Rhiannon Evans
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Are they podcast listeners? Two quick notices before we get started on today's podcast. Firstly, |
| 0:07.0 | Riannon and myself are crowdfunding a new podcast mini-series on the Gomarnia by Tacitus. |
| 0:12.9 | There's still a week to go in the crowdfunding campaign. It has now been fully funded. We've gone |
| 0:17.0 | past our first stretch goal. But if you'd like to hear our exclusive podcast miniseries, |
| 0:22.0 | then consider giving your support. You can find Germania on Kickstarter, and there'll be a link in our show |
| 0:26.8 | notes. Secondly, as you're well aware, Emperors of Rome is now an independent listener-supported |
| 0:31.9 | podcast, so for those of you who are supporting us on Patreon, thank you very much. If you're |
| 0:37.1 | not and would like to check |
| 0:38.1 | it out, there is a link also to that in our show notes. Our Patreon members get the episodes of |
| 0:43.0 | Emperors of Rome early, and they also get access to exclusive bonus episodes. They usually |
| 0:48.4 | complement the normal podcast, so the one that goes up alongside today's episode of Emperors of Rome |
| 0:53.3 | is on the Kursus |
| 0:54.3 | or Narum. |
| 0:55.1 | You can hear a clip from that at the end of this episode. |
| 0:57.6 | If you'd like to find out more, go to patreon.com forward slash Rome podcast. |
| 1:02.2 | Thanks. |
| 1:02.8 | And now that all of that is out of the way, here's the show. |
| 1:07.2 | Can I make a really, I don't know if you want me to do this on the episode, a really |
| 1:11.6 | posy literary comment that this is like Lauren Stern's Tristram Shandy. |
| 1:17.6 | Wow, that is so literary that I have no idea what you're talking about. |
| 1:22.6 | Okay, so you should watch the movie with Steve Coogan and Rob Bryden. |
| 1:26.6 | Oh God, no, no. No, you don't like them? Completely zoning out of that suggestion. Well, the novel is very, very funny. It's an 18th century novel in, I think, eight volumes. And at the end of volume one, Tristram Shandy has just been born. Yeah. And I feel like we're doing that with Octavius. Okay. |
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