Treaty of Brundisium, 40 B. C. While Octavian had been involved in the Perusian war, the Parthians had overrun the province of Syria, and in conjunction with them Quintus Labienus, a follower of Brutus and Cassius, penetrated Asia Minor as far as the Aegean coast. Antony thereupon returned to Italy to gather troops to reëstablish Roman authority in the East. Both he and Octavian were prepared for war and hostilities began around Brundisium, which refused Antony admittance. However, a reconciliation was effected, and an agreement entered into which was known as the treaty of Brundisium. It was provided that Octavian should have Spain, Gaul, Sardinia, Sicily and Dalmatia, while Antony should hold the Roman possessions east of the Ionian sea; Lepidus retained Africa, and Italy was to be held in common. To cement the alliance Antony, whose wife Fulvia had died, married Octavia, sister of Octavian.
The treaty of Misenum, 39 B. C. In the following year Antony and Octavian were forced to come to terms with Sextus Pompey. He still defiantly held Sicily and in addition wrested Sardinia from Octavian. His command of these islands and of the seas about Italy enabled him to cut off the grain supply of Rome, where a famine broke out. This brought about a meeting of the three at Misenum in which it was agreed that Sextus should govern Sardinia, Sicily and Achaia for five years, should be consul and augur, and receive a monetary compensation for his father’s property in Rome. In return he engaged to secure peace at sea and convoy the grain supply for the city. However, the terms of the treaty were never fully carried out and in the next year Octavian and Sextus were again at war. The former regained possession of Sardinia but failed in an attack upon Sicily.
Treaty of Tarentum, 37 B. C. Meanwhile Antony had returned to the East where in the years 39–37 B. C. his lieutenants won back [pg 192]the Asiatic provinces from Labienus and the Parthians and drove the latter beyond the Euphrates. He now resolved to carry out the plan of Julius Caesar for the conquest of the Parthian kingdom. This necessitated his return to Italy to secure reinforcements. But, his landing was opposed by Octavian who was angry because Antony had not supported him against Sextus Pompey, whom Antony evidently regarded as a useful check upon his colleague’s power. However, Octavia managed to reconcile her brother and her husband, and the two reached a new agreement at Tarentum. Here it was arranged that Antony should supply Octavian with one hundred ships for operations against Pompey, that Lepidus should coöperate in the attack upon Sicily, and that both he and Octavian should furnish Antony with soldiers for the Parthian war. As the power of the triumvirs had legally lapsed on 31 December, 38 B. C., they decided to have themselves reappointed for another five years, which would terminate at the close of 33 B. C. This appointment like the first was carried into effect by a special law.
The defeat of Sextus Pompey, 36 B. C. Octavian now energetically pressed his attack upon Sicily, while Lepidus coöperated by besieging Lilybaeum. At length, in September, 36 B. C., Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Octavian’s ablest general, destroyed the bulk of Pompey’s fleet in a battle off Naulochus. Pompey fled to Asia, where two years later he was captured by Antony’s forces and executed. After the flight of Sextus, Lepidus challenged Octavian’s claim to Sicily, but his troops deserted him for Octavian and he was forced to throw himself upon the latter’s mercy. Stripped of his power and retaining only his office of chief pontiff, he lived under guard in an Italian municipality until his death in 12 B. C. His provinces were taken by Octavian. The defeat of Sextus Pompey and the deposition of Lepidus gave Octavian sole power over the western half of the empire, and inevitably tended to sharpen the rivalry and antagonism which had long existed between himself and Antony. In the same year Octavian was granted the tribunician sacrosanctity and the right to sit on the tribune’s bench in the Senate.
III. The Victory of Octavian over Antony and Cleopatra
The Parthian war, 36 B. C. After the Treaty of Tarentum Antony proceeded to Syria to begin preparations for his campaign against the Parthians which he began in 36 B. C. Avoiding the [pg 193]Mesopotamian desert, he marched to the north through Armenia into Media Atropatene in the hope of surprising the enemy. However, having met with a repulse in his siege of the fortress Phraata (or Praaspa), he was forced to retreat. He was vigorously pursued by the Parthians, but by skilful generalship managed to conduct the bulk of his army back to Armenia. Still he lost over 20,000 of his troops, and his reputation suffered severely from the complete failure of the undertaking. And so he prepared once more to take the offensive. As he attributed the failure of the late expedition to the disloyalty of the king of Armenia, Antony marched against him, treacherously took him prisoner and occupied his kingdom (34 B. C.). Thereupon he entered into an alliance with the king of Media Atropatene, a vassal of Parthia, and formed ambitious projects for the conquest of the eastern provinces of the empires of Alexander the great and the Seleucids. But these plans could only be executed with the help of the military resources of Italy and the western provinces that were now completely in the hands of Octavian. In view of the jealousy existing between the two triumvirs it was not likely that Octavian would willingly provide Antony with the means to increase his power, and so the latter was prepared to resort to force to make good his claim upon Italy.
Antony and Cleopatra. Another factor in the quarrel was Antony’s connection with Cleopatra. While in Antioch in 36 B. C. he openly married Cleopatra, and in the next year refused his legal wife, Octavia, permission to join him. This was equivalent to publicly renouncing his friendship with Octavian. Although it cannot be said that Antony had become a mere tool of Cleopatra, he was completely won over to her plans for the future of Egypt; namely, that since Egypt must sooner or later be incorporated in the Roman empire, this should be brought about by her union with the ruler of the Romans. Consequently, since her marriage with Antony she actively supported his ambition to be the successor of Julius Caesar. Their aims were clearly revealed by a pageant staged in Alexandria in 34 B. C., in which Antony and Cleopatra appeared as the god Dionysus and the goddess Isis, seated on golden thrones. In an address to the assembled public Antony proclaimed Cleopatra “queen of queens,” and ruler of Egypt, Cyprus, Crete and Coele-Syria; joint ruler with her was Ptolemy Caesarion, the son she had borne to Caesar. The two young sons of Antony and Cleopatra were pro[pg 194]claimed “kings of kings”; the elder as king of Armenia, Media and the Parthians, the younger as king of Syria, Phoenicia and Cilicia. To their daughter, Cleopatra, was assigned Cyrene. These arrangements aroused great mistrust and hostility towards Antony among the Romans, who resented the partition of Rome’s eastern provinces in the interest of oriental potentates. Relying upon this sentiment, Octavian in 33 B. C. refused Antony’s demands for troops and joint authority in Italy. Antony at once postponed the resumption of the Parthian war and prepared to march against his rival.
The outbreak of hostilities, 32 B. C. The final break came early in 32 B. C. The triumvirate legally terminated with the close of 33 B. C. and two consuls of Antony’s faction came into office for the following year. To win support in Rome, Antony wrote to the Senate offering to surrender his powers as triumvir and restore the old constitution. His friends introduced a proposal that Octavian should surrender his imperium at once, but this was vetoed by a tribune. Octavian then took charge of affairs in Rome, and the consuls, not daring to oppose him, fled to Antony, accompanied by many senators of his party. Thereupon Octavian caused the Assembly to abrogate the former’s imperium and also his appointment to the consulship for 31 B. C. To justify his actions and convince the Italians of the danger which threatened them from the alliance of Antony and Cleopatra, Octavian seized and published Antony’s will which had been deposited in the temple of Vesta. The will confirmed the disposition which he had made of the eastern provinces in the interest of the house of Cleopatra. Octavian was now able to bring about a declaration of war against the Egyptian queen and to exact an oath of loyalty to himself from the senators in Rome and from the municipalities of Italy and the western provinces. It was this oath of allegiance which was the main basis of his authority for the next few years. In reply to these measures, Antony formally divorced Octavia and refused to recognize the validity of the laws which deprived him of his powers.
Actium, 31 B. C. In the fall of 33 B. C. Antony and Cleopatra began assembling their forces in Greece with the intention of invading Italy. By the next year they had brought together an army of about 100,000 men, supported by a fleet of 500 ships of war. However, no favorable occasion for attempting a landing in Italy presented itself and both the fleet and the army went into winter quarters in the [pg 195]gulf of Ambracia (32–1 B. C.). In the spring of 31 B. C. Octavian with 80,000 men and 400 warships crossed over to Epirus and took up a position facing his opponents who had taken their station in the bay of Actium at the entrance to the gulf of Ambracia. His most capable general was Agrippa. Owing to discord which had arisen between Cleopatra and his Roman officers, Antony remained inactive while detachments of Octavian’s forces won over important points in Greece. Antony began to suffer from a shortage of supplies and some of his influential followers deserted to the opposite camp. At length he risked a naval battle, in the course of which Cleopatra and the Egyptian squadron set sail for Egypt and Antony followed her. His fleet was defeated and his army, which attempted to retreat to Macedonia, was forced to surrender. There is little doubt that Cleopatra had for some time been contemplating treachery to Antony, and her desertion was probably based on the calculation that if Octavian should prove victorious she would be able to claim credit for her services, while if Antony should be the victor, she was confident of obtaining pardon for her conduct. Probably she did not anticipate that Antony would join her in flight. At any rate, when Antony abandoned his still undefeated fleet and army he sealed both his fate and hers. The victor advanced slowly eastwards and in the summer of 30 B. C. began his invasion of Egypt. Antony’s attempts at defense were unavailing; his troops went over to Octavian who occupied Alexandria. In despair he committed suicide. For a time Cleopatra, who had frustrated Antony’s last attempt at resistance, hoped to win over Octavian as she had won Caesar and Antony, so that she might save at least Egypt for her dynasty. But finding her efforts unavailing, she poisoned herself rather than grace Octavian’s triumph. The kingdom of Egypt was added to the Roman empire, not as a province but as part of an estate to be directly administered by the ruler of the Roman world who took his place as the heir of the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies. The treasures of Egypt reimbursed Octavian for the expenses of his late campaigns. After reëstablishing the old provinces and client kingdoms in the East, Octavian returned to Rome in 29 B. C., where he celebrated a three-day triumph over the non-Roman peoples of Europe, Asia and Africa, whom he or his generals had subjugated during his triumvirate.