As if Antony had taken pains to furnish his already too powerful rival with the pretexts which should serve as a mask to his ambitious views, the former caused general disgust and indignation at Rome by dismembering the Empire—so to speak—in the interests of Cleopatra, whom he proclaimed Queen of Cyprus, Cilicia, Cœlesyria, Arabia and Judea; while he gave to the two sons whom he had had by her the title of “King of Kings.” This insane defiance of the susceptibility and pride of the Republic was one of the principal causes of Antony’s destruction. People ceased to fear him when they learned that he had become habitually intemperate; and they no longer saw in him a redoubtable and successful Roman general, but an Eastern Satrap, plunged in pleasure and debauchery.
Octavius, affecting rather contempt than anger at Antony’s proceedings, declared war against Cleopatra only, and seemed to regard Antony as already deprived of the power and majesty which he had sullied in committing them to the hands of the Egyptian queen.
Octavius could only raise on the Italian peninsula, then exhausted by civil war, 80,000 legionaries, with 12,000 cavalry, and two hundred and fifty ships—a small force to oppose to the five hundred ships and 120,000 men of Antony, without counting the allied troops which his rival was able to bring against him. But, more active and daring than Antony, he had, with astonishing celerity, collected his forces, and crossed the Ionian Sea, while Antony was lingering in Samos, and indulging in all sorts of debasing pleasures, with little thought devoted to preparation for the inevitable and momentous struggle.
At last the imminence of the danger awoke him to the realities surrounding him, and he brought forward his powerful fleet, anchoring it near the promontory of Actium, in Epirus, ready to oppose the advance of Octavius.
His ships were double in number those of the Romans, well armed and equipped, but heavy, and badly manned, so that their manœuvres did not compare in celerity with those of the western fleet.
Although Octavius had fewer ships and fewer men, those which he had were Romans; and he was fighting, ostensibly, to vindicate the wounded pride and honor of his country, which had been trampled under foot by Antony and a stranger queen.
The generals of Antony united in imploring him not to confide his destiny to the uncertainty of winds and waves, but to give battle on shore, where, they answered for it, victory would perch upon their banners. But Antony remained deaf to their supplications, and Cleopatra, who had joined him with seventy Egyptian ships, also preferred to fight a naval battle; it is said, in order that, if her lover was vanquished, she herself could more easily escape.
Boldly searching for Antony, the Roman fleet came in contact with his, near the promontory of Actium.
On opposite shores of the bay partly formed by that promontory lay the two armies, spectators of a conflict which was to decide their fate, but in which they were not to join.
The wind and weather were both favorable, but the two fleets remained for a long time opposite to each other, as if hesitating to begin the struggle, the issue of which was fraught with such momentous consequences.