And I think you're quite right! If Augustus WAS eventually forgiven over the proscriptions, however, a lot of (bloody) water had to go under the bridge first.

I think most people, realizing that Antony was (??) nearly two decades older than Octavian, and that Lepidus was as well, probably blamed them equally, if not more so, than Augustus for that awful step. And frankly, given the chaos in the streets for years prior to the Civil War, and the violence since, they may have been more hardened to the violence and outright theft of property in the horrible ten years that had preceded the start of the proscriptions in December, 43.

What amazes ME about Augustus is simply that, being the youngest of the three, even if he was legally Consul (or illegally legally, you might say), he got the absolute leavings of assigned territory, and it was his awful job to find places for tens of thousands of retired legionaries both from Caesar's Legions and from the earlier civil war battles. There was no money, so there was no question of buying all the land needed to settle the veterans. They were desperate for money and, unlike Caesar, they made no pretense at buying land - they just ripped it out of occupying hands and gave it away. That made Octavian insanely unpopular for years. It was only when, over time, and veeerrrrry slowly, the economy started to recover and the worst of the proscriptions was behind, that people began to notice that it was Octavian who'd stayed, fighting, in Italy but had eventually more or less sorted things - Antony and Lepidus who were far away and uninvolved. They began to look to Octavian for protection.

But surely it took all of the popularity of Caesar's name, and all of Octavian's good luck, to survive the period 42-32 BC in one piece!