Fan Casting Octavius Caesar in William Shakespeare's ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

The nephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar. Octavius rules the Roman Empire with Antony and Lepidus. Relations between Caesar and Antony are strained throughout the play, for the young triumvir believes that Antony squanders his time and neglects his duties while in Egypt. Ambitious and extremely pragmatic, Octavius lacks Antony’s military might as a general, but his careful and stoic reasoning enables him to avoid Antony’s tendency toward heroic or romantic folly. Destined to be the first Roman emperor (later renamed Caesar Augustus), he symbolizes “Western” values in the play, which stand opposed to the exotic lures of Cleopatra’s “East.”