3. Octavius at the age of about nine years was an object of no little admiration to the Romans, exhibiting as he did great excellence of nature, young though he was; for he gave an oration[12] before a large crowd and received much applause from grown men. After his grandmother’s death he was brought up by his mother Atia[13] and her husband Lucius Philippus, who was a descendant of the conquerors of Philip of Macedonia.[14] At Philippus’ house, as if at his father’s, Octavius was reared and showed great promise, already seeming to be treated with respect by his comrades, the children of highest birth. Many of them associated with him, and even not a few of the youths who had hopes to undertake affairs of state. Daily many lads, men, and boys of his own age attended him whether he rode on horseback outside of the town or went to the house of his relations or of any other person; for he exercised his mind with the finest practices and his body with both genteel and warlike pursuits; and more quickly than his teachers he himself applied his lesson to the facts in hand, so that for this reason also much praise redounded to him in the city.[15] Both his mother and her husband Philippus took care of him, inquiring each day from the instructors[16] and curators whom they had placed in charge of the boy what he had accomplished, how far he had advanced, or how he had spent the day and with whom he had associated. 4. At the time when the Civil War had laid hold on the city,[17] his mother Atia and Philippus quietly sent Octavius off to one of his father’s country places.[18] He entered the forum, aged about fourteen, to put off the toga praetextata and assume the toga virilis, this being a token of his becoming registered as a man.[19] Then while all the citizens looked upon him, because of his comeliness and very evidently noble descent, he sacrificed to the gods and was registered in the sacred college in the place of Lucius Domitius, who had died.[20] The people indeed had very eagerly elected[21] him to this position. Accordingly, he performed the sacrifice, adorned with the toga virilis and at the same time the honors of a very high priestly office.[22] Nevertheless, though he was registered as of age according to law, his mother would not let him leave the house other than as he did before, when he was a child, and she made him keep to the same mode of life and sleep in the same apartment as before. For he was of age only by law and in other respects was taken care of as a child. He did not change the fashion of his clothes, but continued to use the Roman garb.[23]