Wars More Than Civil: Memories of Pompey and Caesar in the Octavia

As the Octavia replays a moment in Rome’s recent history—the struggle to see which Caesar would outlast the rest—its characters simultaneously replay a crucial struggle from the Julio-Claudians’ rise to power: the civil war between Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar. The Octavia’s allusive language recasts its Neronian characters as the Republic’s leading generals, turning strife within the imperial family into a civil war that threatens to engulf the Roman world once more. The play thus challenges the predominant cultural memories of peace fostered by the Julio-Claudian dynasty and promotes instead a counter-memory rooted in civil strife.