The Battle of Actium: the battle that ended the Roman Republic and began the Roman Empire

 

The year is 31 BC. Two men stand at the top of Roman politics, Octavian, Julius Caesar’s posthumously adopted son and heir, and Mark Antony, the soldier-cum-playboy who was one of Julius Caesar’s most trusted men during his Gallic conquests and civil wars. Is The two men have huge fleets of ships facing each other near Actium, Greece.

 Antony’s fleet is plated in gold and silver with two huge ranks, the rank at the back commanded by the influential Ptolemaic queen of Egypt. On the other side is Octavian’s fleet, commanded by his loyal right hand man and crack general Agrippa, who has cornered Antony’s fleet into the bay at Actium, with land forces on the headlands surrounding the water too. 

The subsequent battle will begin a year long conflict to decide who will be the one man in charge of Rome, the man to end a century of civil turmoil, and end a five-century standing republic, and usher in an autocracy in the form of an empire. But how did this happen?

The Background:

Now Octavian had been selected heir to Julius Caesar over the far more likely Mark Antony - why? Because Octavian was a savvy, well educated politician, and Mark Antony was a soldier and party animal. In fact, in, I believe, 48 BC, Mark Antony had been left in charge in Rome while Caesar was off philandering with the queen of Egypt (and defending against a siege). Caesar returned to find Rome in chaos. Whether you think Caesar was purposely testing Antony or not, it was clear Caesar now knew he would not make a good heir to Caesar’s legacy. So Julius Caesar makes Octavian his heir in his will.

Following Julius Caesar’s assassination in 44 BC, Octavian and Mark Antony would on-and-off fight for a few years before effectively splitting the republic into their own zones of control. Antony got the East, Octavian got the west. In reality the period from 44–32 BC is a lot more complex than that, but the basic result is what I’ve said.

The division of the republic between Antony and Octavian. The territories of Sextus Pompey and Lepidus would become part of Octavian’s zone following his defeat of Sextus Pompey and his removal of Lepidus from the second triumvirate (the second triumvirate was the body that consisted of Lepidus, Octavian, and Antony that collectively ran Rome until Lepidus was kicked out - from then it was just Antony and Octavian until the agreement expired in 32 BC).

Now remember that Queen of Egypt? Well that is Cleopatra VII. The Cleopatra. Her and Julius Caesar had actually had a son from their philandering, nicknamed Caesarion. Now, I know I said at the beginning that two men stand at the top of Roman politics, and this is true, but there was also one woman. This woman was Cleopatra, who after Caesar’s death decided to hedge her bets with Mark Antony. Mark Antony was pretty smitten with her, and by 32 BC the two of them had had 3 children alongside Caesarion, who the couple had promised (each of the children) large parts of the eastern territories that fell under Mark Antony’s control.

Cleopatra had also formed a new dynasty with Mark Antony, which included the biological son of Caesar - Caesarion, who surely made a more fitting heir than a merely adopted son in the form of Octavian, right?

In Rome there was outrage, Cleopatra, this eastern mystery queen had cast a spell on one of Rome’s greatest men, trapping him in Egypt and using him to bolster her own influence over Rome. The same thing she had heinously done to Julius Caesar. This perception was only helped by the ever savvy Octavian, who had launched a propaganda campaign to make Cleopatra look like a witch who had complete sway over his once friend and co-ruler Mark Antony.

This propaganda campaign results in a stroke of genius from Octavian. He claims he has found Mark Antony’s will, and reads it out to the senate in Rome. The senators gasp and look in awe as the political mastermind of Octavian stirs them up, reading of Mark Antony’s unthinkable concessions to his children, how Caesarion has been declared ‘King of Kings’, and Cleopatra ‘Queen of Kings’, and despicably, how Mark Antony wishes to be buried in Alexandria - not Rome. Unthinkable. How could the man wanting to inherit Rome not even want to be buried in the city. This confirmed what the senate had been dreading for a long time - that if Antony was in power he’d move the capital east to the seat of his beloved Egyptian queen - Alexandria. It wasn’t so long ago that Antony had celebrated a triumph (or at least something strikingly similar) - a uniquely Roman affair - in the Egyptian city. This once leading Roman, who had ruled alongside Octavian, and who had fought alongside Caesar, avenging him by defeating his assassins in battle, had been completely turned by the sorceress Cleopatra.

And you know what? The senate really bought it. It’s unknown how much of Octavian’s reading of the will is accurate and how much he really embellished. What is known is that he didn’t let anyone else look at the document, which is rather suspicious. What I personally believe is that it was the real will, but Octavian exaggerated or embellished some aspects to generate a greater response.

So in 32 BC, the senate declares war on Cleopatra, not Antony. You see, Octavian had decorated the scenario to make it seem as though this was not another roman civil war (which everyone had more than had enough of by this point), but instead a war against a foreign queen who had seduced one of Rome’s finest men. As the YouTube channel Extra History puts it, this was no civil war - this was a rescue mission.

The Battle of Actium:

So this is it, where I began this answer - the showdown. The opening battle of, as Wikipedia ominously puts it - ‘The final war of the Roman Republic’, not some glorious triumph over a foreign enemy, salting the earth of Carthage, but between Rome’s leading men.

The layout of the Battle of Actium, from Wikipedia.

On the 2nd of September, 31 BC, Octavian and Antony’s fleets meet. Antony and Cleopatra have a huge fleet of two massive ranks, Antony ahead and Cleopatra behind. Cleopatra sits in the ship that contains the couple’s treasury - even if they lose all their ships, as long as this one remains, there is hope. The ships are decorated in gold and silver which glistens and flickers with the reflection of the waves. Antony and Cleopatra’s fleet is filled with soldiers from all over the Greek world, ready to solidify their claim to control the Mediterranean, once and for all. However, Octavian has the upper hand. He has received a tip off of the couple’s battle plan, and he has the greatest general alive in the Roman world - Marcus Agrippa, Octavian’s best friend and military mastermind. Agrippa’s fleet corners the other into Actium, at the mouth of a bay on the western coast of Greece. Cleopatra’s legions on the land begin defecting to Octavian’s side. Cleopatra orders a huge attack, and chaos erupts. Amid the chaos, Antony and Cleopatra’s ships (along with 60 others) turn tail and make for Alexandria. Agrippa crushes the remaining fleet. This is the battle that begins the brief war I mentioned at the start of all this - the War of Actium.

The Final War of the Roman Republic:

Octavian makes a brief return to Italy, where the senate greet him at the port he arrives at. No longer does Octavian go to the senate, they go to him. He’s got the whole republic and its political structure in his hands like a potter with wet clay.

While in Italy, Octavian receives many an envoy from Alexandria, all begging for some kind of compromise. But Octavian has had enough, he is not out to compromise, he is out to conquer. And so conquer he does, and by spring of 30 BC Octavian goes to Syria to begin a march down to the eastern border of the Egyptian Ptolemaic Kingdom. Meanwhile, four legions stationed west of Alexandria join Octavian’s cause - a classic pincer movement of the great city.

On August 1st, Antony has staged his last hurrah, a heroic land and sea battle against Octavian. Alas, he does not get to go out with a bang, because instead, his whole fleet defects to Octavian’s side. The chance of a glorious death in battle is long gone. Octavian mops up his remaining soldiers, and Antony is furious. This leads to a breakdown in Antony and Cleopatra’s relationship, as Antony believes that his queen had orchestrated the surrender. Cleopatra, not willing to withstand Antony’s fury, sends a messenger who claims that the queen is dead, and Cleopatra seals herself away in her partially-constructed mausoleum.

Antony, disheartened and defeated, believing the love of his life is dead, his armies have deserted him, and his shot at greatness gone, decides to fall on his sword. This attempt at suicide is a botched one, however, and Antony’s death becomes a very long and drawn out one. Long enough, in fact, for Cleopatra to send for him and have him raised through a window into her mausoleum. The party animal finally meets his death, taking one last swig of wine and dying in the arms of Cleopatra, whom presumably he had now reconciled with.

Cleopatra would repeatedly beg Octavian to spare her, and he would, but mostly for the purpose of parading her through Rome in his triumph, as had happened to her sister, Arsinoe, fifteen years prior. Unlike Arsinoe, however, Cleopatra would certainly be killed at the end of the ceremony. So, on August 12th, Cleopatra famously kills herself by snakebite, from a snake smuggled into her room in her palace (she’d left the mausoleum by now) in a basket of figs carried by a loyal servant, more willing to die by her own hand than be a conquered woman.

Cleopatra’s final moments in Act 5, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. The play helped immortalise the intelligent and savvy queen and popularised the myth of her suicide by snakebite, the historicity of which is disputed by many historians.

Now Octavian is the man standing on top of the Roman Republic, with his rivals dead, Egypt conquered, and the war won, and a loyal senate and populous who revere him as a saviour of Rome.

From Republic to Empire:

Octavian now stood alone, at the top of Roman politics. Only Agrippa held any similar power, and Agrippa was as loyal as a dog to his dear friend Octavian. In the next four years, from 31–27 BC, Octavian and Agrippa would go through a series of consulships and reforms, ultimately resulting in Octavian clearly holding a new, completely unprecedented position of power in the republic, which was even out of sight of Caesar as dictator at the height of his powers.

So the senate comes to a constitutional settlement with Octavian in 27 BC, giving him ten year governorship over the border provinces of Hispania, Cilicia, Gaul, and the now subjugated Egypt. These were the border provinces, so this was where the Roman military mostly lie, so, as governor, Octavian would effectively control most of the Roman army, and as we would see later in Roman history, he who controlled the legions was he who controlled Rome. In this way, Octavian was still operating within the structures of the republic, cleverly maintaining the illusion that the old republic was still intact.

The senate still wanted to give him a title though, particularly as Octavian was now paramount to the structure of Rome. So, they called him princeps, or ‘first citizen’, again maintaining that republican illusion. Then, the senate gives him a new name too - Augustus. Remember how I said the senate and people revered him? Well Augustus roughly translates to ‘revered one’.

Now Augustus is the name we use to refer to Octavian as emperor, and so this constitutional settlement of 27 BC is typically defined as the turning point from Roman Republic to the Roman Empire. But it’s a rather arbitrary division. When the Battle of Actium took place, it was pretty clear what would happen. One man would come out on top as sole ruler of Rome, with almost absolute power, able to choose his own heirs who would inherit that power, effectively a monarchy. Whether it would be Octavian or Antony with Cleopatra as his queen, it mattered little, the outcome was the same either way.

 What the War of Actium decided was not whether the republic would continue or if the empire would begin - no - the War of Actium would decide which of Rome’s leading men would be the one to lead Rome through that transition, and the deciding moment of the deciding war was its very first battle, the Battle of Actium, which cemented Octavian as the man in charge (for the better in my opinion - remember Antony in charge of Rome all those years back?).