Augustus

By the end of 32 B.C., the main body of Antony’s fleet was based in the safety of the Ambracian Gulf. At the narrowest part of the strait leading to the sea, two towers were constructed (probably where today’s Venetian towers stand), from which catapults could hurl missiles and fireballs at any passing galleys.

The ships had spent much of the summer and autumn ferrying the army to Greece and then establishing a defensive line down its Adriatic coast. A squadron guarded Leucas, the Actium roads, and the islands in the south. It protected the entry into the Corinthian Gulf and the port of Patrae (today’s Patras), where Antony and Cleopatra had established their headquarters. A garrison guarded the Methone promontory. Another force was placed on the headland at Taenarum. In addition, there were Antonian troops on Crete, and four legions held the province of Cyrenaica next to Egypt.

During the winter of 32–31 B.C., Antony’s army was distributed among these strongpoints on the western coast from Corcyra to Methone, with the largest part gathered at Actium.

At first sight Mark Antony’s strategy is hard to fathom. On the two most recent occasions when Greece had been the theater of operations, the opposing generals had focused their attention on the north of the country and the Via Egnatia, that strategically important route to Byzantium and the east. That was where Pompey the Great had based himself in 49 and 48 B.C.; Brutus and Cassius had marched west along it to meet their doom at Philippi.

By contrast, Antony placed no defenses at all north of Corcyra, a hundred miles south of the great highway. Had Octavian wished to do so, he might have sailed from Brundisium to Epirus in the expectation of an easy landfall. Some have argued that Antony’s purpose was to cover the route to Egypt. However, it is highly unlikely that Octavian would have risked his army and fleet on a long journey to invade Egypt, assuming that Antony remained in Greece. An Egyptian foray would have left Italy defenseless against invasion. The most that can be said is that Antony’s deployment would protect an escape to Egypt if that was ever to become necessary.

A more convincing explanation can be hazarded. The safest, shortest, and most sensible crossing point from Greece to Italy was from northern ports, for instance Dyrrachium and Apollonia. By occupying southern Greece, Antony may have wished to make it clear to all that he had no intention of invading the Italian peninsula. Many people, including his own supporters, would have opposed such an enterprise so long as Cleopatra accompanied him. The thought of a foreign queen marching into Rome at the head of an army was universally and totally unacceptable.

Antony’s plan can only have been to tempt, or at least allow, Octavian to transport his army into Greece. The fleet at Actium could then move north and mount a general blockade, preventing provisions and reinforcements from coming to Octavian’s assistance. Once the trap was closed, the Roman empire’s leading commander would delay offering a set-piece battle. With his safe supply route from Egypt, Antony would have all the time in the world, whereas Octavian, whom he knew already to be short of money, would soon also be short of food. Bottled up and desperate for an encounter, Octavian and his army would be easily finessed into a weak defensive position and routed.

On January 1, 31, Octavian, now aged thirty-two, resumed an official constitutional role when he entered on his third consulship. His colleague was a onetime republican, the talented Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, in place of the excluded Antony. The consuls set off for Brundisium, accompanied by seven hundred senators and many equites.

Octavian had the smaller of the two armies, eighty thousand soldiers to the enemy’s one hundred thousand. The difference was mainly accounted for by the number of Antony’s auxiliary or light-armed troops. Octavian’s legions were more experienced than Antony’s mainly eastern levies, having been blooded in the Illyrian campaign.

Octavian made it clear that he expected senior personalities at Rome to accompany his army. The independent-minded Pollio, now more or less retired from politics, boldly refused, telling Octavian: “My services to Antony are too great and his kindnesses to me too well-known. So I will steer clear of your quarrel, and will be a prize for whoever wins.” Maecenas stayed behind to watch the political situation at Rome.

Bitter experience had taught Octavian to respect his own limitations as a commander. He appointed Agrippa to take direct charge of the fleet, and of the design of the campaign as a whole. Once they had learned Antony’s dispositions, the two men agreed on a plan that employed speed and surprise to turn the tables on Antony and trap him.