WI: Emperor Augustus and Livia has a son?

Just what it says in the title. How would history and the Roman Succession be changed if Augustus and Livia had a son? Both had had children from previous marriages so there's no real reason that they couldn't (I'm guessing that there was either a miscarriage that rendered Livia sterile or perhaps the problem lay with Augustus). Lets say this child is born between 30 and 25 BC, this son would come of age between 14 and 9 BC. Would having a direct son and heir give Augustus a reason to create a proper and set succession? Would this help stabilize the Empire in later years?
 
Succession game would become bit uglier. One heir more not surely make things any easier. Augustus and Livia's son probably should kill Tiberius and Germanicus if he just even want to live. And if he is succesful taking throne, him has still much doing that he could keep it himself and that throne can transfer to his son. Roman succession wasn't simple. Office of Roman emperor wasn't hereditary. But if this son is succesful keep throne and tranfer that for his son and etc. Roman might slowly change as hereditary monarchy. Of course it not call itself as monarchy.
 
I think you are misunderstanding the real logic of succession to supreme power in the political system built by Augustus and his caesarian-aristocratic party.

It is less the son of the emperor that became his political heir than the heir chosen by the emperor who became his adoptive son.

Of course, this heir was chosen among Augustus' closest relatives, but he was not necessarily the closest one. There were other political or personal reasons which could lead the emperor to chose as heir someone who was not his closest blood relative. Tiberius was not a blood relative of Augustus, and Germanicus was only the great-nephew of Augustus (though married to his granddaughter Agripinna), while Agrippa Posthumus was his last living grandson.

Caligula was only great-nephew to Tiberius who had a grandson.
Nero was stepson, son in law, and by blood a great-nephew to Claudius.

By stating this, I do not mean that Octavien Augustus did not try by all means to have his closest blood relatives as successor. He in fact always did but had to deal with life hasards given the poor health conditions of the ancient world. Many died while babies, children and young adults.
Augustus' first chosen heir was the first husband of his only daughter Julia : his only nephew in the Julian line (because he had an elder stepsister from a first marriage of his father), Gaius Claudius Marcellus, his closest male blood relative.

But this young man died aged 20 and had no child with Julia.

So Augustus married his only daughter to one of his closest friends who was his best general and his most important political support and lieutenant : Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. And as soon as they had sons, Augustus adopted their first 2 sons as his own sons.

Bad luck, these 2 adoptive sons who were his real grandsons and closest male relatives died, respectively aged 22 and 20.

And given his doubts about Agrippa Posthumus who was adopted at the same time as Tiberius in 4 AD, Augustus had to find a plan B. So he wanted to have as his heir his great-nephew Germanicus, whom he was very fond of, and who was married to his beloved granddaughter Agripinna who gave him many sons and daughters (the ideal roman family and the supposed strong base for a long lasting dynasty).
But Augustus was old, of fragile health, and was careful to have as a heir someone who had been enough tested. So he engineered a double adoption : he forced his recently adopted son Tiberius to adopt Germanicus as his own son and political heir. He thought that Tiberius who was aging would not rule for a long time and that Germanicus who had the support of the core of the caesarian party and was very popular wold then quickly become emperor.

Tiberius lived much longer than Germanicus and was emperor for 23 years ...

So, it is hard to say what would have happened if Augustus and Livia had had a son. In fact they did have (in 37 I think), but this son died shortly after his birth.

And if this son had lived longer, would he have lived long enough to become his father's successor ?
Many people died of natural death when in their late 40's or early 50's at that time. So this blood son of Augustus could well have died before 14 AD.
He could also have died at war like Drusus, the father of Germanicus and emperor Claudius.

Would this son of Augustus and Livia have had children of his own ?
Caesar only had one daughter who reached adult age, and though she was pregnant several times from her husband Pompey, either the children died at birth, or she miscarried before giving birth.

For all these reasons, even if Augustus had had a son, the risk is very high that you have in the end Tiberius succeed to Augustus as emperor in 14 AD.

And if this son ever succeeded his father, I would point to a possible risk of another kind which is interesting.
Augustus seems not to have been very good at breeding children. What the ancient sources show of his 2 grandsons Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar, which he adopted as his first 2 sons, and who were raised by him, is that they were more or less failures. Although very popular, they seem not to have been equal to the task Augustus wanted to assign to them. And they seem to have been aware of it and to have felt hemmed in by this awareness.

Gaius Caesar who was the elder of the 2 brothers and the last surviving one (Lucius died in 2 AD), and after being wounded in Asia, he dispaired Augustus by ... asking to be left alone and rest. He died shortly after robably from health complications.

At last, I don't see why this son of Augustus would have to kill Tiberius and Germanicus. Accusations against Livia's poisoning rivals to her son are pure malicious gossip. Many people died young from illness.
Everybody knew since the proscriptions that the roman emperor was and needed to be merciless. After his own daughter who was banned and imprisoned for life because of a plot in 2 BC, Augustus did of course not hesitate to ban and imprison his elder granddaughter (another Julia married to a Lucius Aemilius Paullus) and to have the husband of this granddaughter executed when he discovered that they plotted against his authority.

PS : this second family plot was probably aimed at directing Augustus' plan for succession in another direction than the new one they guessed Augustus considered in 2 AD just at the time Lucius Caesar died, leaving Gaius Caesar as the only heir of Augustus. The conspirators probably knew that Gaius Caesar was fragile, and might have wanted to bring their own satisfactory answer to the question : "what if Gaius Caesar dies young or is not able to become emperor when the old man dies ?"
 
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I think you are misunderstanding the real logic of succession to supreme power in the political system built by Augustus and his caesarian-aristocratic party.

It is less the son of the emperor that became his political heir than the heir chosen by the emperor who became his adoptive son.

Except which emperor disinherited his own son? Marcus Aurelius had no doubts towards giving Commodus power. TThe Praetorians found Claudius and made him emperor because their was no one left. Tiberius was chosen because he was the only adult male in Augustus' house.

If Augustus had a son, by either wife, and that son was alive and seemingly competent to any extent, he would become emperor and probably would have received all or nearly all of his father's powers while Augustus lived (as Tiberius did). The only real question I have is what would happen to Tiberius if he had a younger half-brother.
 
Well Augustus likely ordered the murder of his grand-son Agrippa Postumus specifically so he would not post any problems in succession. Maybe he does what he did with Tiberius OTL: make Tiberius his heir and make Tiberius make his son his heir (assuming his son is born later rather than sooner).
 
No, Tiberius was not the only adult male of the family. In 14 AD, Tiberius was 55 years old, Agrippa Posthumus was 25, Germanicus was 28. That is for the first circle.
I would also add Marcus Junius Silanus, aged around 28, and who was the husband of Aemilia Lepida, a great-granddaughter of Augustus by his grand-daughter Julia (the exiled one for the conspiracy of 2 AD).

And if you take into account the second circle, that is the linear descendants of his full sister Octavia (from her first husband Gaius Claudius Marcellus consul 50 BCE and from her second husband Marcus Antonius the triumvir), you had also :
- Marcus Valerius Messalla Barbatus, 24 or 25 years old, son of Octavia's second daughter Marcella minor, who was the father of the future empress Messalina.
- Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, son of Octavia's third daughter Antonia maior, who was married to Agrippina the younger and was the father of the future emperor Nero.

You could even add Sextus Appuleius, consul in 14 AD and grandson of Augustus' elder half-sister Octavia maior.

As far as Marcus Aurelius is concerned, he was the first emperor who, when he died, had a young adult (19 years old) blood son. And of course, he chose this blood son as his successor. Which demonstrates that Marcus Aurelius was not the ideal philosopher statesman that ancient hagiography claimed he was.

But Marcus Aurelius set apart, Augustus prefered another heir than Agrippa Posthumus who was his closest blood relative.
So did Claudius who had a 13 years old son called Britannicus and who chose his 16 years old stepson Nero as heir.

Nevertheless, I of course do agree with you that if Augustus had had a son, he would certainly have chosen him as heir, except maybe if this son had been an idiot, or if this son had been an unlucky crippled man like Claudius.

If Tiberius had had a younger stepbrother, from the marriage of his mother Livia with Augustus, then this young son named Gaius Caesar would have been put forward as Princeps Iuventutis, and Augustus would have tried to arrange the best and most prestigious commands for his blood son. But no need to kill Tiberius who was loyal and was not a plotter.

But I still question the ability of Augustus to raise a son as a good statesman and warrior. Augustus was a real coward on the battlefield and he had absolutely no military talent. No doubt a great general of Augustus could do the job of giving the military education for the emperor's son. But would Augustus do it if he did not do it for his first 2 adoptive sons and blood grandsons ?
 
About Claudius and Britannicus. It seems to me that if Claudius had lived long enough to see Britannicus grow up (say to about 20, so 7 more years), then he would have certainly named him his heir over Nero. That seems to me one of the reasons Agrippina murdered him.
 
Well Augustus likely ordered the murder of his grand-son Agrippa Postumus specifically so he would not post any problems in succession. Maybe he does what he did with Tiberius OTL: make Tiberius his heir and make Tiberius make his son his heir (assuming his son is born later rather than sooner).

Well, one can't be sure. But it is more probable that it is rather probable that Augustus let this dirty work to Tiberius. Some even claim that Augustus felt remorse for his family in his last weeks, that he wanted to have Agrippa rehabilitated and that it could have been the reason for Livia to speed up the death of her husband (cf. the excellent TV series "I, Claudius"). But this is just suetonian romance.
 
Well, one can't be sure. But it is more probable that it is rather probable that Augustus let this dirty work to Tiberius. Some even claim that Augustus felt remorse for his family in his last weeks, that he wanted to have Agrippa rehabilitated and that it could have been the reason for Livia to speed up the death of her husband (cf. the excellent TV series "I, Claudius"). But this is just suetonian romance.

Well I think Augustus went to see Agrippa Postumus to make his final judgement on him and see one last time if maybe he was cut out for emperor, or if he was a threat to the empire's stability when Augustus died.
 
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