#locking this one as unrebloggable bc i should put in citations for most of what i said here

[brother-emperors]

hiiii :) i saw your art about agrippa and octavian and i found pretty interesting their dynamic and obviously the artistic side, i was kinda of curious how would you represent that agrippa marry julia the daughter of octavian

it's octavian just going from being best friend/ lover/ liege to father-in-law

so! I don't really think their personal dynamic changes that much despite any changes of legal labels and familial proximity

octavian and agrippa functionally rule rome for a bit as co-regents in all but name (with octavian granting agrippa more or less equal political power to his own), and solidifying personal or political ties through marriage alliances is nothing new, like: julius caesar does it w/ julia and pompey, octavian does it with octavia & mark antony (although octavia actually operates on a much more even footing to her brother than a lot of people give her credit for) it's that octavian does it TWICE with agrippa (first with his niece, claudia marcella major, and then even more immediately with his daughter, julia) that makes me go, oh okay. interesting, fellas.

all of that + agrippa's habit of distancing himself from his own family (name/history) and giving octavian credit for all his own successes over and over again without octavian asking (to agrippa's own detriment [see: the signet ring incident], and octavian does ask: only he asks this of marcus licinius crassus (consul 30 BC) because crassus' successes are a threat, not a gift) and octavian creating a single point of failure, so to speak, with his dynast building plans because he doesn't effectively diversify his portfolio beyond agrippa is all very. well.

(like, I do think it's interesting that octavian tries to make agrippa his heir-successor on more than one occasion [through marriage, the signet ring, can't forget that crown incident, and an honorable mention for the display of grief he has on agrippa's death] I mostly think that their continuing to do All Of That All The Time made problems for other people)

anyway, I think all the labels operate as background noise to them. or something. idk if this makes sense, I'm Very Tired right now and it has been Several Months since I have thought about them beyond 'extremely funny that in suet., cal., 23.1, caligula made incest allegations against octavian to avoid being related to agrippa.*'

*caligula has octavian, agrippa, and mark antony on his family tree

#i was about to say they fit the married couple household dynamic if you treat all of rome as a fucked up house #but actually this is not true. #octavian actually goes on too many military campaigns with agrippa during their shared career for it to count #which is like. that's also married in a kind of way but it's more empire related than late republic and octavian is late republic #whether he wants to be or not #crassus and pompey stay winning! #ask tag #locking this one as unrebloggable bc i should put in citations for most of what i said here #but all i have on this flashdrive i have w/ me right now is related to crassus lmao #maybe. i'll come back tomorrow and fix that