The Battle of Actium

Podcast Transcript

On September 2, 31 BC, one of the most important battles in history took place off the coast of Greece.

The forces of Octavian, the posthumously adopted son of Julius Caesar, squared off against the forces of Mark Antony, the former right-hand man of Julius Caesar.

After having been partners in ruling Rome for years, the two developed irreconcilable differences that had to be resolved on the battlefield.

The outcome of the battle influenced the course of the Roman Empire for centuries.

Learn more about the Battle of Actium, what caused it, and how it affected history on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

I’ve done many episodes on famous battles in history. Some of those battles were relevant because of the size of the battle or because of the brilliant use of tactics or strategy.

Others were important because of the repercussions of the battle.

The Battle of Actium definitely falls into the latter category. It was one of two great battles that defined the end of the Roman Republic. The first was the Battle of Pharsalus, where Caesar defeated the Senate forces under Pompey. That pretty much ended the republic.

The Battle of Actium is the bookend to the Battle of Pharsalus that created the Roman Empire.

To understand what happened, we need to revisit the events that led to the battle.

Back in 49 BC, eighteen years before Actium, Julius Caesar marched into Italy with his legions and began a civil war with the Senate led by the great General Pompey Magnus.

Pompey and the Senate fled Rome for Greece. Caesar gave chase and defeated the senate at Pharsalus in 48 BC.

With that, Caesar was declared dictator for life and was assassinated in 44 BC.

In the wake of his death, he left the majority of his vast estate to his 19-year-old grand nephew, Octavian, whom he posthumously adopted. This created a split between Octavian and Caesar’s primary lieutenant, Marcus Antonius, aka Mark Antony,

Mark Antony had served under Caesar in Gaul and ruled Rome while Caesar was away on campaign.

The two split the loyalty of Roman forces and fought a civil war, but put their differences aside to jointly fight the forces of Caesar’s assassins. They defeated them at the Battle of Philippi.

After the battle, with Rome securely under their control, they agreed to share power with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, one of Caesar’s generals and who assumed the position of Pontifex Maximus after the death of Caesar.

Their arrangement became known as the Second Triumvirate, a subject that I covered in a previous episode.

Lepidus was the junior member and was given control of the relatively unimportant North Africa.

Mark Antony was given control of the eastern empire, with its rich provinces.

Octavian stayed in Rome and was given control of the West.

Mark Antony was initially considered to have gotten the better end of the deal, as he was able to enrich himself in the East. At the same time, Octavian had to deal with internal politics and with Sextus Pompey, the son of Pompey Magnus, who was wreaking havoc by committing piracy on the seas around Italy and Sicily.

The most important region in the East was not technically a Roman province at this time: Egypt. Egypt produced a massive amount of grain that was necessary to feed everyone in Rome.

The leader of Egypt was Cleopatra, who had a relationship and a child with Caesar.

When Mark Antony went East, one of the first things he did was summon Cleopatra to Tarsus, in modern Turkey, to answer accusations that she had aided Cassius, one of Caesar’s killers.

Cleopatra, aware of Antony’s vanity and love of spectacle, staged a magnificent entrance: she sailed up the Cydnus River on a gilded barge with purple sails, dressed as the goddess Isis, surrounded by incense, music, and attendants. Ancient sources like Plutarch describe Antony being utterly captivated.

Cleopatra’s performance was political theater. She needed Antony’s support to secure her throne against rivals and to restore Egypt’s power. Antony, in turn, needed her wealth and Egypt’s resources for his planned campaigns in the East. Their meeting turned into a prolonged stay, and by the end of that year, Cleopatra had charmed Antony both politically and romantically.

Antony followed Cleopatra back to Alexandria, where their relationship deepened. The two became lovers, and Cleopatra bore him twins, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, in 40 BC.

Their time in Alexandria was marked by lavish feasts, games, and a kind of shared fantasy of power and divine identity. They presented themselves as new incarnations of the Roman and Egyptian gods Dionysus and Isis.

Antony had to return to Rome in 40 BC to address issues with Octavian and secure his position within the Triumvirate. To maintain peace with Octavian, Antony married Octavian’s sister, Octavia, creating a temporary reconciliation between the two men.

Cleopatra remained in Egypt, raising their children and maintaining rule.

By 37 BC, Antony and Octavian were once again drifting toward conflict. Antony returned east and reunited with Cleopatra at Antioch, effectively resuming their partnership. Cleopatra provided him with money, supplies, and ships for his renewed campaign against Parthia, a costly and ultimately unsuccessful expedition.

In return, Antony restored Egyptian territories that had once belonged to the Ptolemaic Kingdom, including Cyprus and parts of Syria. Their relationship was now both romantic and strategic. Cleopatra’s wealth underpinned Antony’s military ambitions, and Antony’s Roman legitimacy bolstered Cleopatra’s position in Egypt.

While relations had been tense between Mark Antony and Octavius for years, things got worse in 34 BC.

After his failed Parthian campaign, Antony staged a grand triumph in Alexandria. He publicly distributed territories to Cleopatra and their children in a ceremony known as the Donations of Alexandria. Cleopatra was proclaimed “Queen of Kings,” and their son Alexander Helios received Armenia, Media, and Parthia, while Selene and their younger son, Ptolemy Philadelphus, were given other realms.

This alarmed Rome. It seemed Antony was founding a new dynasty that would rival or replace the Roman Republic, and using Roman territory to do it.

Antony was always confident that his popularity amongst the Roman people was high enough that they would never turn on him. However, he had been away from Rome for years, and his actions had made him very unpopular.

The Donations of Alexandria, combined with Antony’s apparent rejection of his Roman wife Octavia, gave Octavian powerful propaganda material. He portrayed Antony as having become an Eastern despot, enslaved by Cleopatra’s charms and betraying Roman values for Egyptian luxury.

The event that truly turned public perception against Antony was when Octavian illegally seized Antony’s will from the Vestal Virgins and read it publicly. This act revealed Antony’s wishes to be buried in Alexandria, which was a scandalous betrayal of Roman tradition.

Octavian wasn’t a skilled general, but he was a brilliant politician. In 32 BC, Octavian forced the Roman Senate to declare war not on Antony but on Cleopatra.

Octavian’s war effort relied on the naval genius of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, his closest friend and most capable admiral.

If you remember back to my episode on Agrippa, he was arguably the best number two guy in history and a large reason for Octavian’s success.

Agrippa had rebuilt and trained a fleet of lighter, more manuaverable liburnian ships and secured reliable bases across the Ionian Sea. Octavian also mustered veteran legions and dependable cavalry, though he avoided risking a major land battle until conditions favored him.

Antony and Cleopatra assembled a large but motley armada. Contemporary sources vary, but Antony likely had a few hundred warships, many of them large and heavily built, with reinforced rams and high fighting decks.

Cleopatra brought a significant Egyptian contingent that added ships, sailors, rowers, and money. Antony also had sizeable land forces in Greece, yet his supply lines ran across the Aegean and Adriatic and were vulnerable to Agrippa’s naval raids.

In the spring and summer of 31 BC, Agrippa moved first. He seized the town of Methone and other positions on the western Greek coast, cut Antony’s communications, and took Leucas and the important harbor of Patrae.

These moves pinched Antony’s access to grain, water, and fresh crews. Disease and desertion gnawed at his camp. Cleopatra’s presence, far from unifying the command, fueled suspicion among Roman officers.

Rather than storm Antony’s troops on land, Octavian and Agrippa chose to blockade and starve the enemy fleet, which was holed up in the Ambracian Gulf. Time favored them. Every week, Antony’s stores dwindled, and every day that crews sat idle, they lost conditioning and morale.

Antony faced an ugly choice. He could not sustain a long siege. A breakout at sea offered his best chance to relocate the combined fleet and army to a friendlier theater.

On the morning of September 2, the winds were light, the sea relatively calm. Antony’s fleet sailed out of the narrow mouth of the gulf in three divisions, with Cleopatra’s squadron positioned in the rear center. They had about 500 ships.

Octavian’s line, directed by Agrippa, fanned out into open water to avoid constriction and to force maneuver combat where his lighter liburnians excelled. The had about 400 ships.

Antony’s ships had advantages in size and height, which made them superior in a straightforward ramming or boarding fight.

Agrippa refused to play that game.

His captains harassed Antony’s flanks, used superior oar discipline, and exploited the better handling of his vessels. Instead of delivering head-on rams, they aimed to break oars, strike at rudders, and set fires with incendiary projectiles.

The engagement became a test of discipline and stamina rather than a single decisive charge.

At a chosen moment, Cleopatra’s squadron unfurled their sails and drove through a gap toward the open sea. Whether this was a planned breakout for the whole fleet or an independent dash for safety by Cleopatra remains debated by ancient sources.

Antony, seeing Cleopatra flee, took a small escort and followed her.

Seeing the departure of both Antony and Cleopatra shattered the remaining fleet’s morale. Isolated ships continued to fight with determination, and some of Antony’s largest galleys resisted capture even when ablaze, but their command had failed.

By day’s end, Agrippa controlled the waters and took or destroyed much of the enemy fleet. Antony’s army, stranded on land without naval cover or supply, melted away in the following weeks.

With the destruction and abandonment of Antony’s fleet and army, nothing was stopping Octavian now.

Octavian advanced methodically. He accepted the surrender of Greek cities formerly controlled by Antony, reorganized the region, and prepared for the final move on Egypt.

In the summer of 30 BC, his forces reached Alexandria. Antony, defeated in a brief clash on land, took his own life. Cleopatra attempted negotiation, then committed suicide via a snake, an event that rapidly became legendary.

Octavian annexed Egypt as his personal province, seized the immense treasure of the kingdom, and eliminated a key independent power that had influenced Roman politics for a century.

Cleopatra was the last pharoah in a line that extended back over 3000 years.

Back in Rome, Octavian closed the doors of the Temple of Janus to symbolize peace and celebrated a triple triumph in 29 BC. He founded the city of Nicopolis near Actium and refounded the Actian Games to commemorate victory.

The Senate granted him the title Augustus in 27 BC. During his years of rule, he reshaped Rome into the Principate, or what we often call the Roman Empire.

The victory at Actium became the turning point that ended the age of civil wars that began almost 50 years earlier and marked the start of the long era of Pax Romana.

To understand just how important the Battle of Actium was, you just have to consider how different the world would have been if Octavian and Agrippa had lost.

If they lose, there is no Augustus, and the position of emperor is never established.

If Antony had gone through with the Donations of Alexandria, Rome would have been split into pieces, and the next several centuries could have been one of constant warfare between the splintered parts.

The next several centuries of Roman and Byzantine history were all due to the events in 31 BC that took place off the coast of Greece.