ABSTRACT
But all this came later and was retrospective. Gaius Octavius, sometimes also known as Thurinus, was the son of Gaius Octavius and his second wife, Atia. The elder Gaius had been married first to Ancharia, by whom he had a daughter, called Octavia Major, to distinguish her from her half sister Octavia Minor, born to Gaius and Atia. The Octavii were wealthy
equestrians, who ran their banking business at Velitrae, and were members of the aristocracy of the town, which became a Roman colony in the fifth century BC. Suetonius says that there were many indications that the Octavian family was a distinguished one at Velitrae. A street in the most busy area of the town was named after them, and there was an altar consecrated by an Octavius whose claim to fame derived from his prompt improvisation during a sacrifice to Mars. He was interrupted, so the story goes, by news that troops from a neighbouring town were about to attack, so he quickly gathered the entrails of the sacrificial beast, offered them to the god in their unprepared state, went off to battle, and won. Such was the legend. In the event of his failure, of course, he would have gone down in history as an unprincipled, sacrilegious type whose fate should be a warning to all. The people of Velitrae were so pleased with the action of Octavius that they decreed that henceforth all sacrifices to Mars should be conducted in the same manner, and the remains of the sacrificed animals should be offered to the Octavii.2
