Octavian’s #1 Fan

Devoted to Imperator Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus 💕💕💕

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Love the part in Epitome De Caesaribus where there’s a whole paragraph about Augustus’ faults that says “well he envied power, gambled excessively, was lustful outside of his marriage regularly, acted hypocritically, etc.” and then the cherry on top of all of that he likes looking at strange animals too much. RIP Augustus you would’ve loved modern zoos and circuses.

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Augustus writing this letter to his grandson, Gaius, and calling him his dearest little donkey only to outlive him 🥺 (from Aulus Gellius’ Attic Nights)

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Top five worst jokes from Augustus Caesar (they’re all awful, really):

The time he came across a guy plowing across his father’s memorial because he needed to use the land, and Augustus said he was surely cultivating his father’s memory.

When a man was presumably hunchbacked and asked Augustus to correct him if he was wrong, and Augustus said he could advise him, but not correct him (referring to his posture).

Dogging on his daughter for plucking out her gray hairs by pretty much saying she’d look better old than bald.

The time Augustus insisted a guy be charged for something (idk what) and then the guy asked Aug how he was gonna tell his father about the charge, and Augustus says “well ok just tell him you didn’t find me to your liking :-)”

When he ate at a colleague’s house and apparently the place looked messy and the hosting family was kinda being lazy and Augustus (who usually preferred people not making a grand display of him coming over) was in such disbelief that he mumbles some bs about “i didn’t know I was that good a friend of yours”

HM: His stupid food puns.

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When you know alexander the great wanted to emulate achilles and patroclus with his lover, hephaestion, and julius caesar wanted to emulate alexander the great, and augustus (referred to as caesar above) wanted to be like julius and then you see in horace’s Odes a reference to achilles’ anger after patroclus’ death… and it’s addressed to agrippa, augustus’ best friend and most loyal general... I’m going crazy. Is history just a series of politicians thinking them and their closest confidante will never live up to the last iconic ride-or-die duo?

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Tfw your emperor (Augustus) has a guy nailed to a ship mast because he ate his own beefy quail… petty aug shenanigans…

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Some of my favorite details that make Augustus more relatable:

He was superstitious and scared of storms (would hide in the cellar). It’s said that he refused to do business on the ninth day of each month because the word for it (nones) sounded evil

He LOVED gambling

Apparently, he wore platform shoes to look taller

He was a bit terrible at learning Ancient Greek

His favorite foods were coarse/rock-hard bread paired with mashed vegetables. Also, dates were his favorite fruit.

Many modern historians argue over whether or not he might’ve had dyslexia because of his odd writing habits and frequent spelling of words EXACTLY as they were pronounced, but this might just be him being stubborn

Either he was a huge lightweight or he just never liked drinking because he rarely drank wine that wasn’t heavily watered down

Many people of his time describe him as having a high-pitched, almost musical voice

He was really fond of kids and liked to play games with them, especially in old age. As for people his own age, he struggled to make friends and stuck with his childhood friends

In the winter, Augustus would wear up to four layers (4 tunics, a thick toga, an undershirt, a wool vest, and cloth strips around his thighs and shins), and in the spring/summer, he’d wear a hat with a huge rim

He LOVED reading books he enjoyed in the senate, and would subject senators to his readings on moral reform (childbirth or marriage, usually) or infrastructure (like building heights)

He apparently really liked this kind of sour cheesecake, so he’d bring it everywhere and insist everyone try it

Many people insist he must’ve had psychosomatic illnesses because he’d frequently get sick around the same times every year (some say he was usually ill around his birthday). When he did get sick, he’d allegedly go to the house of his old friend, Maecenas, to recover

He loved and hated excess eye contact

Pettiness was SO ingrained in him that when Mark Antony died, immediately after, he’d read letters Antony sent to him in the senate to highlight how rude Antony was in comparison to how nice he was.

He adored food and agriculture puns. Like… a LOT. At times, he’d say he was “limp like a beet” instead of “I’m beat,” and he’d entreat others to do things “quicker than boiled asparagus”

Suetonius says he had a unibrow and bad teeth

There’s a story of him finding parrots (some sources translate it as ravens) so endearing that he collected talking ones for large sums of money

He’d mimic his poetic friends’ writing styles in letters to them to be playful

He napped often, and he’d sometimes nod off mid-day. Right before a battle in the Sicilian War, Octavian apparently fell so fast asleep that he almost missed giving the signal to his troops. He also fell asleep best when read to and really didn’t like being alone when falling asleep

On that same note, he wasn’t a morning person

He had just a grand time watching boxing. Frequently