The campaigns in 48 BC and 42 BC had been fought in the north, in Macedonia and Thessaly. Antony abandoned this area and the main route of the Via Egnatia. Perhaps he was inviting Octavian to land there, confident that there would then be sufficient time to concentrate his own forces and confront and destroy the enemy. Yet at the moment Antony’s defenders were spread dangerously thinly along a coastline where armies could not move rapidly. For the winter this was not much of a risk, and he and Cleopatra settled down to pass these months pleasantly at Patrae, waiting to see what Octavian would do in the spring. There were some diplomatic exchanges. Octavian asked Antony to withdraw from the coast and permit him to land, promising that they would then fight the decisive battle within five days. Antony replied by challenging his younger opponent to single combat. Neither proposal was serious, but they were intended as proof of confidence.7
CONTACT WITH THE ENEMY
On 1 January 31 BC Octavian became consul for the third time, with Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus as colleague. Antony had been stripped of the consulship awarded to him back when the triumvirate was secure. Octavian again had formal power as a magistrate of the Republic. Antony continued to call himself triumvir, although he promised to lay down his power once he had achieved victory. At first he said this would be two months after the war was won, but Dio claims that friends persuaded him that there would be much work to do and so he ought to wait for six months. Octavian held legal imperium and that was some advantage. A far greater one was the utterly loyal assistance of his old friend, Agrippa, by now a gifted general and one of the finest admirals Rome ever produced.8
With winter barely over, Agrippa attacked, striking at Methone. It was Antony’s southernmost outpost, somewhat isolated from the rest of his forces. To get there Agrippa had to sail further than the northern route. This was always a risk in war galleys, whose range was limited by the difficulty of carrying much food and water for the crew. If he had been repulsed, or badly delayed by the weather, he could easily have got into serious difficulties. The gamble paid off. Antony’s men were not prepared and the harbour town was swiftly overrun. The enemy ships were destroyed or captured and one of their commanders, the exiled King Bogud of Mauretania, was amongst the dead. Octavian and Agrippa now had a base on the Greek coast.9
Antony had expected the main attack to come in the north, but instead the enemy had struck in the south. Wrong-footed, he was thrown further off balance when Agrippa launched a succession of raids along the Greek coast, reaching as far as Corcyra. In the confusion, Octavian crossed the Adriatic in the north and began landing the army at Panormus, a little to the north of Corcyra. As far as we can tell, each of his convoys went unmolested by Antony’s squadrons and soon the bulk of his troops were safely in Greece. He occupied Corcyra, which had been abandoned by Antony’s garrison in the confusion caused by Agrippa’s raids. Octavian marched south along the coast, his ships raiding ahead of the army.
Antony reacted slowly, and he and Cleopatra tried to present a façade of calm. Perhaps it was genuine and they were still confident of inevitable victory given the size of their forces and their belief in Antony’s own talent. Dio makes him boast of his generalship in a speech to his men: ‘you are the kind of soldiers that could win even without a good leader, and… I am the kind of leader that could prevail even with poor soldiers’. When news arrived that Octavian had occupied a town in Epirus called Torone (meaning ‘ladle’), she joked that why should they worry ‘if Octavian is sitting on the ladle’-the word was also slang for penis. Antony began to react to the invasion, but his forces were widely dispersed and would take time to concentrate.10
Octavian’s target was Actium, and although he was unable to surprise the squadrons there, he managed to occupy the hill – today known as Mikalitzi – which dominated the peninsula forming the northern entrance to the Gulf of Ambracia. Antony arrived soon afterwards, having moved up from Patrae and camped on the southern side of the bay. For the moment he had only an advance guard and so declined the enemy’s offer of battle. As more of his soldiers arrived, his confidence grew and he established a second smaller camp on the north side of the bay, close to Octavian’s position. Antony then deployed his men in battle order, but the enemy refused to commit to battle now that they had lost their advantage in numbers.
Octavian’s hilltop position, reinforced by earthworks connecting it to the sea and offering protection to his ships, was too strong to risk a direct assault. It was also considerably better placed than Antony’s main camp, which lay in low-lying, waterlogged ground, rife with mosquitoes. Disease became a serious problem, with so many soldiers and sailors concentrated in a small area. Probably the main culprits were malaria, dysentery and other stomach complaints. Men fell sick and many died. Desperate measures were taken to conscript more rowers for the fleet, and perhaps these suffered especially badly. Paid less than legionaries, and probably fed less well, such recent recruits were unlikely to take readily to the discipline of the camp, where in ideal circumstances care was taken to regulate hygiene, especially in the digging of latrines. Disease and desertion whittled away at Antony’s strength.
The stand-off extended from spring into summer. Octavian sent some raiding parties into northern Greece, but failed to draw off any significant enemy force to deal with them. Instead, Antony began work on a line of fortifications behind Mikalitzi Hill, hoping to deny Octavian’s men access to the River Louros, which provided their only source of fresh water. A series of skirmishes was fought to control this position, mostly by cavalry while the infantry worked. Octavian’s men won all the major encounters and it proved impossible for Antony’s men to maintain the blockade.11
Agrippa continued to range along the coast. Just south of the entrance to the Gulf of Ambracia lay the island of Leucas — the ‘White Promontory’, named after the high limestone cliffs along one of its shores. Agrippa destroyed the Antonian squadron based there and captured the island. This made it much harder for Antony’s reinforcements and supplies to reach Actium by sea. It also provided a better anchorage for Octavian, whose ships might have suffered badly in the preceding months if luck had turned against him and a major storm had blown up.
An even more startling blow came shortly afterwards when Agrippa captured Patrae, then Corinth itself. More of Antony’s ships and stores were taken, but as importantly the enemy now dominated the waters around the west coast of Greece. The supply route bringing grain from Egypt was effectively severed, destroying one of the main props for his strategy. Food ran short in Antony’s camp at Actium, which in turn worsened the damage done by disease. Orders were sent out to confiscate food from the cities of Greece. Plutarch’s great-grandfather recalled how his home city of Chaeronea was forced to provide grain. There were nowhere near enough animals to transport the heavy sacks and so the citizens were compelled to carry them on their backs, urged on by blows from Antony’s men.12
By late summer the situation for Antony at Actium was only getting worse, and for a while he considered marching away from the coast and taking the war inland. Dellius and a Thracian nobleman were sent to Macedonia and Thrace to recruit new contingents of auxiliaries and also to explore this possibility. It would have meant abandoning the ships in the harbour, unless these could break out. Antony for a while also led a force inland. Encouragement came when Sosius managed to attack an isolated squadron of enemy ships and defeat them, but on the way back he was caught by Agrippa and badly beaten. The blockade remained in place. Antony returned to Actium, but was himself beaten in another cavalry action. Plutarch claims that at one point he narrowly avoided capture by an ambush set by Octavian’s men.13
Morale plummeted in Antony’s camp and a visible sign was the abandonment of the smaller camp. The entire army withdrew to the original, highly unhealthy site. The situation looked desperate and the troops despaired of his ability to do anything to change this. Domitius Ahenobarbus left in a small rowing boat and joined Octavian, but was already ill and died soon
afterwards. Antony made the same gesture Caesar had done to Labienus, by sending Ahenobarbus’ baggage after him. Dellius – who had in the past twice managed to quit a losing cause before the end came – also left. He claimed that Cleopatra was plotting against him, because he had joked about the poor quality of the wine served at a feast, compared to the ‘best Falernian’ vintages drunk at the table of Sarmentus. The latter was a freed slave, famed for his good looks and willingness to exploit them, who had risen to the equestrian order and become an intimate of Maecenas, and through him of Octavian.14
As well as a number of senators, client monarchs also began to change sides. Octavian was joined by the rulers of Paphlagonia and Galatia, the latter bringing 2,000 cavalrymen with him. Increasingly distrustful and suspicious of his subordinates, Antony ordered the execution of a senator and an Arab king, as well as other unnamed men. By the end of August it was clear that nothing was to be gained by remaining where he was. His army and fleet were dwindling. There were now barely enough crew to man some 230-240 warships and many of the rowers were recent conscripts.15
The legions had also suffered, but remained a formidable force, and Canidius argued that it was best to abandon the fleet and move inland. Antony disagreed and decided to break out by sea, leaving Canidius to march the army to safety. Ancient sources saw this as part of his obsession for Cleopatra. Some of the ships were hers and, most importantly, her treasury was probably too bulky to carry away over land. Modern scholars tend to strain every nerve to justify Antony’s decision, the most optimistic arguing that he still hoped to win a decisive battle at sea, while most simply see the breakout as the best option of continuing the war. A few realistically point out that he had already lost the campaign. For other Romans, there could be no doubt that Antony failed as a commander at Actium. A good Roman general never gave in and rallied as much of his force as possible, leading them away to renew the conflict at a later stage. This was the virtus expected of a Roman aristocrat. Abandoning his army, in the hope that a subordinate would lead them in an escape, was against all the values of his class.
Bad weather delayed the breakout for several days. All of the ships that could not be crewed were burnt. It was sensible to prevent them from falling into enemy hands, but was also a clear sign of desperation and despair. Cleopatra with some sixty or so ships remained in reserve, carrying her money and courtiers. The remainder were formed into three squadrons, with the left wing commanded by Sosius, the centre by Antony supported by Marcus Insteius and Marcus Octavius — a distant relative of Octavian who had also fought for Pompey against Julius Caesar — and the right by Gellius Publicola. Cleopatra’s ships, and probably some or all of the others, carried sails on board. This was unusual, since oars were the only effective way of controlling a galley in battle and masts were usually left onshore because of their bulk and encumbrance. It is harder to know whether the crews knew that the aim was to break out and not to fight. This was certainly kept secret from the legions to be left onshore. Some of these men were put on board the ships to act as marines, but their comrades were to be abandoned.
By this time Octavian had around 400 ships, some of them captured during the last months. Antony had a number of very large galleys — ‘tens’ and ‘eights’, although the bulk of his fleet were ‘fives’ and ‘sixes’ — giving him a slight advantage, but nowhere near enough to offset the enemy’s superiority in numbers. Even more importantly, many of Agrippa’s crews had years of experience – as vital for teams of rowers to perform effectively as for captains to control their vessels. They deployed in a shallow arc facing the enemy, with Agrippa on the left, Lucius Arruntius in command of the centre and Marcus Lurius on the right. Octavian was also on the right and would share the danger with his men, but wisely left control of the battle to Agrippa.16
The Battle of Actium
On 2 September 31 BC Antony’s fleet came out of the Gulf of Ambracia. They formed up, and then the two sides faced each other for several hours. Neither wanted to fight too close inshore. Agrippa wanted the enemy to come further out, so that his more numerous ships would be able to envelop the enemy line. He seems to have dissuaded Octavian from an unlikely plan of letting the enemy through and then hitting them from the rear. Antony faced the problem of getting past the island of Leucas. For this he needed to wait for the afternoon, when usually a wind picked up blowing north-north-west. To outpace the enemy, Antony’s ships would need the wind behind them and enough room to clear Leucas. This meant that they needed to be some distance out to sea when the wind changed to the right direction.17
Halfway through the day the wind began to veer and Antony at last gave the signal for a general advance. Agrippa still wanted more sea room, so instructed his own ships to back water, rowing away from the enemy. Only once he was satisfied that there was space to threaten the enemy’s flanks, did he give the signal to attack. The opposing fleets closed and then the fighting broke down into contests between one or two ships on either side. Ramming was rarely very effective against the bigger galleys used by both sides. More effective were missiles fired from the deck and from the raised towers carried in battle by most warships, and by boarding. Larger ships could be dealt with if attacked by more than one smaller vessels.
Agrippa struggled to envelop the enemy right and Antony’s squadron commander Publicola moved away from the centre to prevent this. The Antonian ships eventually formed a rough line at an angle to the rest of their fleet as they tried to fend off Agrippa. In the centre, large gaps had opened as these manoeuvres took place. At this point, Cleopatra’s squadron hoisted sail and headed for this space. Once they were far enough out to take advantage of the wind, they began to move too fast to ram or board, for at these speeds ships did not manoeuvre quickly. However, more importantly they were moving too fast for the enemy to have much chance of intercepting them.
Antony saw them go and left his flagship – one of the great ‘tens’-and transferred by rowing boat to a smaller ‘five’, which presumably had not yet been engaged or was otherwise in better shape. This, too, hoisted sail and followed the queen. Some of his other warships were able to go with him. Agrippa’s ships were not carrying masts and sails so had little chance of catching them, apart from the need to keep fighting the remaining enemy vessels. Only two ships were intercepted and taken, and perhaps some seventy to eighty galleys managed to escape with Antony and Cleopatra. At least two-thirds of the fleet was left behind. Fighting continued for some time, although the scale and intensity of the combat is hotly debated.18
Octavian’s propaganda exaggerated the ferocity of the struggle to overcome Antony’s larger ships. There certainly was some fighting and the stories of Agrippa’s crews using burning projectiles to set fire to the enemy vessels appear in several sources and are probably true. Plutarch says that there were 5,000 casualties, but is not explicit as to whether these were combined losses for both sides, or only those suffered by Antony’s fleet. Most scholars, as usual inclined to be bloodthirsty, see this as a low figure, and this convinces them that the fighting was limited. That is possible, although it is equally possible that in a battle fought not far from the shore many crews of sunken ships were saved from drowning — we read, for instance, that Sextus Pompey had an organised rescue service using small boats.19
Some of Antony’s warships were sunk or burnt. Others eventually surrendered. A significant number backed water and re-entered the Gulf of Ambracia. Agrippa’s men may have let them go, feeling it was not worth taking casualties to destroy ships that were still under a blockade, which they were incapable of breaking. Canidius led the army inland, but supplies would soon run short and there was nowhere for them to go. Even if they had reached the coast somewhere away from the enemy, there were no ships to evacuate them. These were Antony’s legions. They did not fight for a cause, but for a general who had rewarded them generously in the past and promised more in the future. Now, that commander had abandoned them and there was no reason for them to suffer and die
on his behalf. In spite of Canidius, army officers began to negotiate with Octavian, who was generous. Several legions were preserved, the soldiers from the remainder were either posted to serve in one of his legions or, if they were due for discharge, were to be given land as part of his veteran settlement. Canidius fled.20
Antony had abandoned the bulk of his fleet at Actium. The army he left behind had changed sides within a week. All that remained was a third of his fleet, and the legionaries serving on board as marines. These were only a small minority of his legionaries and the number may have been less if Cleopatra’s vessels had not been reinforced in this way. The queen’s treasure had been saved, but neither this nor all the revenue she might extract from her kingdom in future would be able to replace the legions and fleet he had lost.
It may well have made sense to get the queen and her money away from the blockade at Actium. Yet there was no need for Antony to follow her if that was the sole aim of the battle. It is unlikely that even his presence could have allowed his outnumbered warships to defeat the enemy. Yet the remainder of the fleet might have withdrawn to the harbour in better order, saving more of the crews and the embarked legionaries. If Antony in person had led the army away from the coast then the soldiers were far more likely to have remained loyal. There was even the remote possibility that he could have fought and won a decisive battle to turn the campaign around, just as Caesar had done at Pharsalus. If not, then he might just have managed to withdraw. At the very least he would have put up a struggle, refusing to admit defeat in a properly Roman way.
Antony and Cleopatra Page 40
