Early Career
Gnaeus Octavius was a member of the Plebeian gens Octavia. His father, also called Gnaeus Octavius, was Consul in 128 BC, while his uncle, Marcus Octavius, was a key figure in opposition to the reforms of Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC. He was distantly related to Gaius Octavius, father of the future emperor Augustus.
Although at some point he had failed to be elected aedile, in around 90 BC, Octavius was elected Praetor, and in the following year (89 BC) was given a propraetoreal command in one of the eastern provinces. In 88 BC he was back in Rome where he was elected to be consul for the upcoming year (87 BC). While consul designate, he was made to swear an oath alongside his colleague, the popularist senator Lucius Cornelius Cinna, that he would uphold the changes instituted by the current consul, Sulla, and not strip Sulla of his lawful command of the First Mithridatic War. A scrupulously religious man, Octavius kept his oath.
Octavius was not a natural supporter of Sulla; he disliked both Sulla’s march on Rome, as well as Sulla’s personal vendetta against Gaius Marius which resulted in Marius’ exile. However, he was a conservative member of the Senate, and was distrustful of Cinna’s popularist programme. These political differences saw the two consuls almost immediately begin quarrelling in 87 BC over policy, with Cinna determined to grant Roman citizenship to all people in Italy, and to enrol the new citizens and freedmen across all of the Roman tribes. He also proposed the recall of Marius and all his supporters. The new enfranchisement was strenuously opposed by Octavius, eloquently and energetically speaking against it in the Senate.
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