Le Gout des jeunes pousses: Atticus, Brutus, Octave

Youth in politics might be a default - a lack of experience justifying waiting for your turn - or an advantage, as a promise of renewal and energy. In ancient Rome youth was something more positive than one could expect: the Roman people, if not the Senate, was fond of young leaders like Scipio Nero, whilst Galba was despised for being too old. This paper aims at studying the case of two young men in the Late Republic - Brutus and Octavian - through their relationship with a much older man, Atticus. The first part focuses on Brutus, born approximately 85 BC and belonging to the ancient elite like Atticus, who was considered a promising young leader of the Optimates since his beginnings in 58 BC until his misfortune in 44-43 when he could not manage to apply the murder of Caesar to his own advantage. The second part concerns Octavius, the real young man, born in 63. He was nineteen years old when he became Caesar's heir, while Brutus was already forty. The vocabulary is revealing: Octavius is called puer by his opponents, but he is an adulescens for the Caesarians, and Brutus is described as an adulescens though already a iuvenis. Atticus, who always helped Brutus, had to change his way: a wedding between Attica and Agrippa, planned by Antony, resulted in him finally belonged to Octavian's party. Octavian, the new man who had won the war, needed a symbol of the old elite and of Republican Rome. Atticus had to save what could be saved.