Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Octavia Minor was the sister of the first Roman emperor, Augustus; wife of his ally and enemy, Mark Antony; ancestor of the emperors Caligula, Claudius, and Nero; and contemporary of Cicero and Vergil. Octavia traces this elite woman’s path through a turbulent period of Roman history. The major events of her life include coming of age in the late Republic, her pivotal role as wife of Antony and sister of Octavian during the Triumviral conflicts, and finally her exemplary motherhood in the early years of the Augustan regime. Throughout, Octavia is shown to deploy age-old skills of the elite matron, including distributing information, interceding between political relatives, managing large estates, and arranging marriages. Within the context of civil war, women did such traditional work on a newly public stage. Particular attention is paid to our sources of information, most of which were composed long after Octavia’s brother won the war against her husband. Images of her on coins, public statues, legal privileges, and her building program complicate a generic picture of Octavia as the good Roman matron—a picture that later literary sources strongly develop. The book also explores the complex interaction of her story with legends about other famed Roman women, including Cornelia and the Sabine Women. Octavia’s life helps reveal changes to the social and political landscape for women and men of the Roman elite—and how these changes came about—as the Republican system disintegrated and a new imperial one emerged.</jats:p>