A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology
William Smith, Ed.

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Octavius

2. Cn. Octavius, son of the preceding, was plebeian aedile in B. C. 206 with Sp. Lucretius, and was with him elected to the praetorship for the following year, B. C. 205. Octavius obtained Sardinia as his province, and captured off the island eighty Carthaginian ships of burden. In the following year, B. C. 204, he handed over the province to his successor Tib. Claudius, but his imperium was extended for another year, and he was commanded by the senate to keep watch over the coasts in those parts with a fleet of forty ships. He was also employed in this year in carrying to the Roman army in Africa supplies of provisions and clothes. Next year. B. C. 203, his command was again prolonged, and the protection of the coasts of Sardinia was again entrusted to him; and while he was employed, as he had been in the preceding year, in carrying supplies to Africa, he was surprised off the coast of Africa by a fearful storm, which destroyed the> greater part of his fleet, consisting of 200 transport vessels and 30 ships of war. Octavius himself, with the ships of war, obtained shelter under the promontory of Apollo. Octavius was present at the battle of Zama, in B. C. 202, and Scipio placed so much confidence in him that he commanded him after the battle to march upon Carthage with the land forces, while he himself blockaded the harbour with the fleet. In B. C. 201 Octavius returned with part of the fleet to Italy, and handed over to the propraetor, M. Valerius Laevinus, thirty-eight ships for the prosecution of the war against Philip of Macedon. But he was not long allowed to remain inactive. In B. C. 200 he was sent into Africa as one of the three ambassadors to Carthage, Masinissa, and Vermina, the son of Syphax. In B. C. 194 he was one of the commissioners for founding a colony at Croton in Southern Italy, land two years afterwards, B. C. 192, just before the breaking out of the war with Antiochus the Great, he was sent into Greece in order to support the Roman interests in those parts. (Liv. 28.38, 46. 29.13, 36, 30.2, 24, 36, 31.3, 11, 34.45, 35.23, 36.16.)