The War Against Cleopatra — Octavian, Antony and Cleopatra: The War for the World
Octavian has a problem: the Romans have had enough of civil wars. According to scholars, this war has to look like something else. That is why the Senate will declare war not on Antony but on Cleopatra. Cassius Dio explains it this way: Antony was not named because it was known he would stand on her side anyway, and then it would be he, unwronged by Rome, who took up arms against his own country.
He has a second problem too: money. Plutarch describes how citizens paid a quarter of their income and freedmen an eighth of their property, and all over Italy there were loud complaints and riots. Octavian needs an enemy whom people will hate more than taxes.
He gets one in the form of Antony’s will. Suetonius and Plutarch agree that Octavian had it opened and read out: according to Suetonius before the people, according to Plutarch before the Senate. According to Suetonius, Antony named his children by Cleopatra as his heirs, and according to Plutarch his body was to be carried through the Forum and sent to Cleopatra in Egypt (Dio adds: buried in Alexandria at her side). Many senators disliked that a man’s will was read while he was still alive. But the effect is just what was needed.
In 32 BC the Senate votes for war. Cassius Dio writes of a visit to the temple of Bellona, where Octavian, as a fetial priest, performs the ancient rites of declaring war, and the senators put on military cloaks, as if the enemy stood at the gates. Plutarch adds a charge Octavian hurled at Antony: that he was drugged and not in control of himself, and that the Romans were fighting Mardion the eunuch, Potheinus, and Iras and Charmion, Cleopatra’s attendants.
But remember: this picture was left by the victors. And before the battle begins, we have to count the ships.
The omens are bad. Plutarch records that the city of Pisaurum, which Antony founded on the Adriatic, was swallowed by fissures in the earth, and that sweat oozed for many days from his marble statue near Alba. At Patras lightning destroyed the temple of Heracles, and at Athens a wind hurled the statue of Dionysus into the theater.
Antony has five hundred warships, a hundred thousand infantry and twelve thousand cavalry, Plutarch records. He also has allied kings. But the ships lack rowers, so he recruits travelers, mule drivers, harvesters and boys. Plutarch records that many ships could not be fully manned.
Antony nevertheless prefers a sea battle. Plutarch thinks he does it to please Cleopatra, though his land army is much stronger. In Antony’s camp by the gulf it is cramped and disease spreads. Octavian keeps to the shore, and his fleet is commanded by his friend Agrippa.
Cassius Dio writes that Antony hurried to Actium as soon as he heard that Octavian was approaching. The decisive clash, however, does not come. Every day Octavian draws up his infantry before Antony’s camp and sails up with his ships to intercept transports. Antony does not want to stake everything on one throw. He delays, and time in the camp by the gulf works for Octavian.
September 2, 31 BC. Everything rides on this one battle.
What actually happened? Plutarch sees it this way: Antony sets off after Cleopatra, boards her ship and, neither seeing her nor seen by her, sits alone in the bow with his head in his hands. Cassius Dio puts Cleopatra’s departure down to impatience and fear. But some historians see in it a plan to break the blockade and carry off the treasury.
We know one thing. Antony’s fleet went on fighting for a long time without its commander: according to Plutarch no more than five thousand men fell, but Octavian captured three hundred ships. The land army could not believe its commander had fled, and after seven days it went over to Octavian. And what if the plan had succeeded?
Antony and Cleopatra flee to Egypt. Octavian will pursue them.