I like it, well written and thought out.
I've always wondered what could happen with Caesarion surviving.
Thanks, means a lot
Augustus' death will cause interesting times in Rome! For all his achievements, I regard Augustus more as a manipulator than a real great man like Caesar himself was, so I'm not shedding any tears for him.
And now the fun really starts. Does the title imply there will be more Caesars at the same time besides Agrippa and Caesarion?
As you say, NOW the fun starts
As mentioned above, Agrippa has a daughter, 6 year old Vipsania.
Another piece on the dynastic chessboard, not yet mentioned, is Caesar Augustus' 9 year old daughter Julia. IOTL Agrippa himself married her in 21 BC when she was 18; after she had already been married to the afore mentioned Marcellus - her 1st cousin.
What is Agrippa to do?
1) Decide what sort of dynasty he would like to start. Agrippa comes from the Knights class himself, which is not going to sit well with the Senatorial class in Rome (or what's left of it by this point).
1a) Marry Augustus' widow Livia or get her the hell out of Rome. Livia was very smart, very ambitious, and if "I Claudius" is to be believed VERY deadly. This match could well improve his political legitimacy by marrying Augustus' widow. But coming from a Senator family, would Livia be too prejudiced to lower herself to even marry Agrippa if given an offer? Or would she marry him to increase the chance her son Tiberius becoming the next Emperor? She would be a great tool to assist him in ruling. Personally, I avoid this match, but how is he to know what is in Livia's mind.
1B) Marry Augustus' sister Octavia the Younger. She's around 39 or 40 and single after divorcing from Anthony. That would increase his political legitimacy and make him step father to Marcellus. Likely due to her age no more children could come from this marriage. But would put him in an excellent position to arrange for the marriage of his daughter Vipsania to Marcellus, thus double binding his dynasty with the same bloodline as Caesar Augustus.
1C) Regardless of whether he marries anyone or not, arrange for the marriage of his daughter Vipsania to either Marcellus or Tiberius. Personally, I avoid connections with Livia and go with Marcellus.
1D) See if he can wait on his own marriage until Julia is 15 or 16, then marry Caesar Augustus' daughter himself.
1E) See if he can wait a couple years and then marry one of the older, non-Anthony related daughters of Octavia the Younger. This would be the full sisters of Marcellus. They would be 2 - 4 years older than Julia, so he might only have to wait 1 - 3 or so years before he could marry one of the them. Not as long a wait as for Julia.
2) marry off or arrange for the marriages of all Anthony's children to either foreign potentates (which IOTL is what was done with his daughters by Cleopatra) or to Roman's in the Knights class. Keep those offspring away from marrying into Senatorial Families and becoming future rivals. (Except for Octavia the Younger's children by Anthony if he opts for #1B above)
Thank you so much for this post! A lot of great ideas, and a lot of things I had already been going over in my mind. I originally intended to go into greater detail of Augustus' will, the thinking behind it and so on, but decided to cut out. It was also my original intention for Agrippa to marry Octavia before Octavian actually died (hence why I had her come from Greece to join her brother in Alexandria) but decided against it for two reasons - 1, her "advanced" age, 2, for whatever reason, she seems to have been pretty resolved not to marry after Mark Anthony, so it would seem out of character for her to do so here. Octavia seems so nice and placid, I could see her being a very pleasing Empress and greatly strengthening Agrippa's position, but alas it is not to be.
Ah - what I intended to imply but haven't really gone into is this: Augustus' obvious heirs were his step-son and nephew, but they were too young, unexperienced, untested, etc. So he adopts Agrippa, but there's an understanding that Agrippa is to adopt both Tiberius and Marcellus as his heirs. How Livia feels about that, and about Agrippa, is yet to be seen
Vipsania and Julia are aguably the two most eligible girls in the Empire now and their marriages are of the utmost importance. Agrippa has to be careful to not let Caesar's daughter marry someone outside of his immediate circle, and will obviously use his daughter as a very important designation of who his political heir is to be.