The Naval Battle of Actium, 31 B.C.

Octavianus’ victory over Antonius (Mark Antony) was a historically cataclysmic moment that shattered the very foundations of the ancient Republic. With his enemies vanquished, Octavianus claimed unrivaled dominion over the Roman government, casting aside the old order and erecting in its place the towering behemoth of the Roman Empire — a new era, born from the ashes of the Republic, that would echo through the annals of history for millennia.

Actium. 2nd September, 31 B.C.
Octavianus' Naval Forces: ~400 Ships
Antonius' and Cleopatra's Naval Forces: ~ 500 Ships

Additional Reading and Research:

• Fuller, J.F.C. A Military History of the Western World.
• Gurval, Robert. Actium and Augustus: The Politics and Emotion of Civil War.
• Porter, Barry. Actium: Rome's Fate in the Balance.
• Plutarch. Life of Antony.
• Sheppard, Si. Actium, 31 BC: Downfall of Antony and Cleopatra.

Chapters

• 0:43 The Birth of Antonius and Octavianus
• 2:38 The Second Triumvirate
• 4:14 Octavianus' First Political Moves
• 4:51 Antonius Meets Cleopatra
• 6:36 Antony and Cleopatra Declare Themselves Gods Reincarnate
• 8:10 Octavianus Turns Rome Against Antony
• 10:36 Octavianus Destroys Antony's Supply Lines
• 11:58 The Decision to Fight at Sea
• 14:39 Cleopatra Flees the Naval Battle
• 16:31 Antony's Troops Surrender En Masse
• 17:38 Antony's Last Stand
• 18:37 Octavianus as "First Citizen" in Rome
• 19:33 Octavianus as Emperor
• 20:12 The Dynastic Caesars
• 21:15 Changes to the Roman Military
• 23:03 The Aftermath and Legacy of Actium

Transcript

Welcome to History's Greatest Battles. Season one, episode 13. The Naval Battle of Actium, 2nd of September, 31 B.C. 
Octavianus' Roman Republic: 400 ships
Antonius' and Cleopatra's Roman and Egyptian forces: 500 Ships

Octavianus’ victory over Antonius was a historically cataclysmic moment that shattered the very foundations of the ancient Republic. With his enemies vanquished, Octavianus claimed unrivaled dominion over the Roman government, casting aside the old order and erecting in its place the towering behemoth of the Roman Empire—a new era, born from the ashes of the Republic, that would echo through the annals of history for millennia.

In the shadow of Julius Caesar’s brutal assassination on the fateful Ides of March, 44 B.C., two titanic figures began their audacious maneuvering to seize control of the Roman Republic, each eager to don the bloodstained mantle of power. The first of these rivals was Marcus Antonius, known to history as Mark Antony, a battle-hardened general and Caesar’s favored disciple. Revered by the legions and bolstered by the support of key senators, Antony stood as a formidable force on the Roman stage. His adversary was Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, Caesar’s adopted son and heir by will, a young man of unassuming appearance but with the weight of Caesar’s legacy resting on his slight shoulders. Octavianus, stationed in the distant eastern provinces when the news reached him, raced back to Rome with the urgency of a man chasing destiny, only to discover that Antony had already squandered a large portion of his rightful inheritance. Yet, despite Antony’s encroachments, Octavianus wielded the mighty name of Caesar as a potent weapon, rallying support from both the Senate’s corridors and the legions’ ranks. Meanwhile, Antony, dismissive of the youth’s potential, continued to cultivate alliances, blinded by his own hubris. With Caesar’s murderers having scattered to the winds, and both men burning with the desire for retribution, Antony and Octavianus struck a precarious alliance with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, forging the Second Triumvirate—a fragile trinity reminiscent of the earlier, storied alliance between Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus. United by vengeance, the triumvirs pursued the treacherous assassins, Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, to the far reaches of Macedon. There, amidst the blood-soaked fields of Philippi in March 42 B.C., they emerged victorious after two ferocious battles. In the heat of battle, Octavianus’ forces faltered and were vanquished by Brutus, but Antony, ever the seasoned warrior, swooped in to rescue his young ally from utter ruin. Lepidus, the least ambitious of the trio, was quietly exiled to the political wilderness of North Africa, a calculated move designed to make him fade into irrelevance. His final grasp at glory, a botched attempt to conquer Sicily in 36 B.C., sealed his fate, and he vanished into obscurity. Antony, however, basked in the glow of his military triumphs and the substantial political clout he had amassed, casting a long and imposing shadow over Rome. In a masterstroke of political cunning, Octavianus sought to fortify his position by appointing Antony as the governor of Rome’s eastern provinces and sealing their alliance through the marriage of his sister, Octavia, to the formidable general. Meanwhile, in Rome, Octavianus meticulously endeared himself to the Senate, all the while gathering around him a cadre of brilliant and fiercely loyal generals, men who would one day carry his standard to the ends of the earth. As Antony journeyed through the opulent lands of the East, fate led him to Cleopatra VII, the enigmatic and powerful queen of Egypt. Once the lover of Julius Caesar, Cleopatra now ensnared Antony in her intoxicating allure, binding him to her with a passion that would reshape the world. Cleopatra, ever the astute and calculating monarch, perceived her liaisons with Caesar, and later with Antony, as strategic gambits—alliances designed to preserve Egypt’s sovereignty by aligning it with Rome’s might. But together, Antony and Cleopatra became consumed by vaulting ambition. In a scandalous move, Antony married Cleopatra without first divorcing Octavia and showered her and their progeny with vast swaths of territory, as if he were carving up the Roman Empire to suit his whims. To Octavianus, this brazen act was an unforgivable affront and a dire threat, provoking him to set in motion a meticulously crafted plan to bring Antony crashing down from his heights. Meanwhile, Antony was not idle. He strengthened his grip on the eastern provinces by installing his loyal supporters as client kings, rulers who owed their crowns not to Rome, but to Antony’s favor and patronage. In a bold and audacious play for Greek allegiance, Antony and Cleopatra proclaimed themselves the living incarnations of Dionysus and Aphrodite, deities of revelry and love, casting themselves as divine rulers destined to reshape the world. In the summer of 36 B.C., Antony embarked on an ambitious invasion of Parthia, Rome’s elusive and troublesome Persian foe, likely aiming to expand his power base and cement his legacy as a conqueror. Yet, the invasion ended in disaster, a crushing blow that thwarted Antony’s grand designs for two long years. The catastrophic loss of 20,000 to 30,000 men forced him to rebuild his legions at Egypt’s expense, deepening his dependence on Cleopatra and binding his fate ever closer to hers. By 32 B.C., with tensions at their zenith, Antony dispatched a set of audacious demands to the Roman government, entrusting his allies, Gaius Sosius and Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, the consuls of that year, with their delivery. Though the message did not reach its intended audience as planned, Sosius took the opportunity to launch a scathing attack on Octavianus in the Senate. In a masterstroke of propaganda, Octavianus retaliated by unveiling what he claimed was Antony’s will—a document that, if genuine, amounted to a treasonous surrender of Roman authority in the East to Cleopatra. Outraged, the two consuls and a throng of 300 senators defected to Antony’s camp, while the rest of the Senate, incensed and resolute, rallied around Octavianus, clamoring for war against the traitor in their midst. In the biting winter of 32-31 B.C., Antony mobilized a colossal force, marching into Greece at the head of nineteen legions—an army of 80,000 infantry and 15,000 cavalry. An additional eleven legions stood ready in garrisons stretching from the eastern Mediterranean coast to the sands of Egypt, a vast and formidable host poised for war. To the eyes of Rome, this grand march appeared as the ominous prelude to an invasion of Italy itself—a perception Octavianus eagerly fed through his propaganda. Yet in truth, it was likely a defensive gambit, a calculated maneuver to preempt Octavianus’s own designs on the eastern provinces. Antony’s power extended beyond his legions; he commanded a formidable fleet of 480 ships, anchored strategically on the western coast of Greece at Actium, modern-day Punta. Here, his position was fortified, his supply lines stretching securely back to the riches of Egypt. In contrast, Octavianus faced a precarious situation as he advanced. His 73,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry were a costly burden, and the Roman taxpayers, their loyalties divided, groaned under the weight of sustaining the campaign. Undeterred, Octavianus led his forces across the treacherous waters of the Adriatic Sea in early 31 B.C., marching swiftly down the eastern coast. Simultaneously, his brilliant general, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, commandeered a fleet of over 400 ships, striking at Antony’s rear in southern Greece with devastating precision, severing his vital supply lines and leaving him vulnerable. Octavianus pressed on, leading his legions to within five miles north of Actium, where he established a fortified camp on a narrow peninsula, a strategic position that divided the Ionian Sea from the Gulf of Ambracia. Antony, ever the strategist, had also secured a stronghold on a peninsula at Actium, positioned across the straits from Octavianus. He moved to the far end of the opposing peninsula, where he established a base under the watchful command of his trusted subordinate, P. Crassus Candidius. The summer months dragged on in tense anticipation, with both armies locked in a staring contest across the straits. Yet, as the days wore on, Antony’s forces began to feel the tightening grip of starvation, their supplies dwindling to dangerous levels. At last, Antony and Cleopatra made their fateful decision—they would stake everything on a naval battle. They gambled that their colossal quinqueremes, towering over Octavianus’s smaller vessels, would crush the enemy. Should victory elude them, the plan was to retreat to Egypt by sea, while Candidius’s forces would attempt a daring breakout to join them. As dawn broke on the 2nd of September, 31 B.C., the two fleets faced each other across the waters, nearly equal in number, each commander acutely aware that the outcome would determine the fate of the Roman world. Octavianus’s fleet, arranged in three disciplined divisions, stood poised at the mouth of the straits. Antony mirrored this formation, his ships bristling with anticipation, while Cleopatra held a reserve of sixty vessels, ready to strike or flee as the tide of battle dictated. The ensuing battle was a grueling struggle, fraught with peril for both sides. Antony’s massive quinqueremes were virtually impregnable to ramming, the favored tactic of naval warfare, yet their size rendered them cumbersome, too sluggish to execute the deadly maneuvers that could have turned the tide. Octavianus’s smaller, nimbler ships dared not close the distance, for the towering quinqueremes bristled with soldiers, ready to rain down a deadly hail of javelins and arrows from their lofty decks, a rain that would wreak havoc on the exposed crews below. And so, the fleets circled each other like wary predators, sparring for position under the relentless sun. Agrippa, commanding Octavianus’s left wing, sought to outflank Antony’s right

, striving to find an opening in the enemy’s defenses. As the fleets drifted northward, locked in their intricate dance, a sudden gap yawned open in the center of the battle line. Seizing the moment, Octavianus’s general, Lucius Arruntius, thrust his division into the breach, plunging Antony’s forces into chaos. Sensing the tides of battle turning against them, Cleopatra made a swift and fateful decision—she would not be taken prisoner by Rome. In that critical moment, Cleopatra could have committed her reserve to seal the breach, potentially snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Instead, she turned her sixty ships and fled, cutting through the chaos as she raced for the safety of Egypt’s shores. Witnessing Cleopatra’s sudden retreat, Antony, as if struck by a fatal compulsion, abandoned the battle. He disengaged his fleet, hastily gathering forty ships to chase after her, leaving his remaining forces leaderless in the midst of battle. Antony’s hasty departure left the rest of his fleet rudderless, vastly outnumbered, and utterly spent after a day of fierce rowing and desperate struggle. As a storm rolled in with the afternoon, the beleaguered fleet’s disarray dissolved into outright panic. The tempest proved too much for Antony’s abandoned sailors, and in despair, they began to surrender en masse, over 350 ships falling into enemy hands. Even as Antony pursued Cleopatra southward with feverish haste, the legions he had left behind remained ignorant of the battle’s disastrous outcome, stranded in a perilous limbo. Once word of the crushing defeat reached them, Candidius attempted a desperate breakout. But the morale of his troops had already shattered, and in droves, they defected to Octavianus, abandoning Antony’s cause to its doom. News of Octavianus’s sweeping victories at sea and on land spread like wildfire, quashing any hope of loyalty from Antony’s client kings, who swiftly turned their backs on him in his hour of need. In the summer of 30 B.C., Octavianus marched his victorious legions through Syria, advancing inexorably towards Egypt. As he pressed southward, the garrisons in his path either capitulated without a fight or scattered in fear. Meanwhile, Lucius Scarpus, one of Octavianus’s trusted generals, led another force from Cyrene, sweeping through the west and closing in on Alexandria from Libya. Desperation drove Antony to mount a final defense at Alexandria, but the odds were hopelessly against him; his forces were dwarfed by the might of Octavianus’s legions. Cleopatra, ever the strategist, had secretly sought terms with Octavianus after the catastrophe at Actium, but her negotiations were in vain. After Antony ended his life in despair, Cleopatra was captured, a queen brought low by the tides of fate. Refusing to endure the humiliation of being paraded through the streets of Rome as a conquered monarch, Cleopatra chose to follow Antony in death, embracing her own tragic end. With his rivals vanquished and the last vestiges of opposition extinguished, Octavianus stood unchallenged as the supreme ruler of Rome, his power absolute and uncontested. To the Senate, Octavianus pledged a return to the revered traditions and laws of the Roman Republic, yet these promises were mere formalities, a façade concealing the true extent of his dominion. In truth, the so-called First Citizen was Rome’s first emperor in all but name. The vast territories of Rome, stretching from the windswept shores of Spain to the ancient lands of Mesopotamia, were now formally acknowledged as the Roman Empire, an empire that had long existed in practice. The Roman populace, once fiercely resistant to any man daring to claim kingship, now surprisingly embraced Octavianus as their emperor, a testament to the subtlety of his rise and the weariness of a war-torn people longing for peace. Indeed, Octavianus soon assumed the exalted title of Augustus, a name that would echo through the ages, symbolizing his unparalleled authority and the dawn of a new era. When Augustus breathed his last after an extraordinary 41-year reign, the title of Caesar was securely passed to his kin, irrevocably shattering the illusion of the Republic and cementing the imperial lineage that would dominate Rome for centuries to come. Augustus wielded supreme authority over Rome's sprawling dominions. Though he allowed the Senate to maintain the semblance of power within the Italian peninsula, the true reins of control rested in his hands. The provincial governors, who commanded the legions stationed across the empire, answered directly to him, ensuring that the might of Rome’s military remained firmly under his control. The facade of the Republic was carefully preserved, even as Augustus quietly reigned with absolute power, a master of illusion who held the true levers of governance. Moreover, Augustus transformed the Roman military from a temporary force assembled in times of crisis into a professional standing army. This change allowed for long-term enlistment, instilling greater discipline and elevating the legions into an unparalleled war machine. This monumental shift not only fortified Augustus's grip on power but also forged a military juggernaut that would remain virtually invincible for centuries, the backbone of Rome’s imperial dominance. The establishment of a standing army necessitated the construction of permanent bases, and the forts and encampments that dotted Europe’s landscape would eventually give rise to many of today’s great cities, enduring legacies of Rome’s military might. Yet perhaps the most valuable prize of all was Egypt, once a powerful rival and occasional ally, now fully subjugated as a Roman province. Its vast treasures and resources were absorbed into the Roman coffers, fueling the empire’s wealth and splendor. Equally crucial was Egypt’s agricultural bounty, which now fed the Roman populace. For the next four centuries, the fertile fields of northern Africa would be the empire’s breadbasket, sustaining the vast population of Rome with a steady supply of grain. The conquest of Egypt solidified Rome’s dominance over the Mediterranean, establishing it as the unchallenged maritime power. This naval supremacy ensured that trade flourished across the seas, unimpeded by all but the rare pirate, for centuries to come. The combination of unbridled trade and unrivaled military power made Rome fabulously wealthy, ushering in the Pax Romana—a golden age of peace that spread Roman civilization and its cultural influence to the farthest reaches of the Western world.