Augustus

At daylight Octavian, now back on land, could assess the outcome. He saw now that he had won at least a partial victory. About thirty or forty enemy galleys had been sunk and about five thousand of Antony’s troops killed. The commanders of the remaining one hundred thirty or one hundred forty ships briefly considered their position, realized it was hopeless, and surrendered. However, a sizable army of up to fifty thousand men was holding together under Canidius Crassus, who started leading it toward the Pindos mountains and the relative safety of Macedonia. Unless that force could be neutralized in some way, the battle of Actium would simply be a passing incident in the war, not its decisive encounter. So he marched after Antony’s legions.

As things turned out, he did not need to worry. Until the day after the battle, the soldiers had no idea that their commander had abandoned them. The men longed to see him and were sure that he would soon turn up from somewhere or other. But the days passed with no sound or sight of him, and their confidence collapsed. The time had come for them to do a deal with the victor. In essence, the soldiers demanded to be treated as if they had been on the winning side. After a week of tough negotiations, Octavian agreed to keep the legions in being instead of disbanding them and, most important, he promised to give them the same rewards as the victorious army.

The deal done, Canidius and other senior officers wanted no part of it. One night they left camp secretly and made their sad way to Antony.

XV

A LONG FAREWELL

31–30 B.C.

Now the tourist resort of Mersa Matrouh, this small coastal town commands a large and beautiful lagoon with miles of sandy beach. In this delightful spot (promoted today as a “corner of paradise”), Antony plunged into the deepest gloom. He had hoped to make contact with four of his legions in Cyrene, but they declared for Octavian and refused to meet him. He sent Cleopatra ahead to Alexandria, where her ships arrived garlanded as if in victory. Before the truth came out, she had any potential opponents killed. In the meantime, her disconsolate paramour was able, in Plutarch’s dry words, “to enjoy all the solitude he could desire.”

Octavian sent a victory dispatch to Rome, but, patient and methodical as ever, was in no hurry to deal with Antony and Cleopatra. He decided to spend the oncoming winter on the island of Samos.

Many more soldiers were under arms than were needed or could be afforded. Octavian sent Italian veterans above a certain age back to Italy for formal discharge, but gave them neither land nor money because for the moment he had none. There were soon disgruntled mutterings, and Agrippa was sent back to deal with the problem.

There was other evidence that the regime was unpopular. Maecenas uncovered a plot to assassinate Octavian on his return to Italy. It was ineptly masterminded by Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, son of the self-seeking former triumvir and a nephew of Marcus Brutus. “A young man whose good looks exceeded his prudence,” he was put to death. Dio writes that Antony and Cleopatra schemed to “actually kill [Octavian] by treachery.” Were they, one wonders, ever in touch with young Lepidus?

It is a sign of Octavian’s managerial good sense that while he was away from Rome, he was willing to delegate powers to Agrippa and Maecenas, men who had been at his side throughout the long adventure and whom he trusted completely. He allowed them to read in advance his dispatches to the Senate, and correct them if they so wished. He had a duplicate made of his seal ring—the image of a sphinx—so that they could seal his letters up again.

The Donations of Alexandria were swiftly canceled. While deposing many minor princelings, Octavian confirmed on their thrones most of the major client kings—Amyntas of Galatia, who had defected to him with his cavalry; Polemo of Pontus, who had stayed behind in his kingdom; and Archelaus of Cappadocia. These were capable rulers, who knew it would be in their interest to remain loyal to whoever was in charge of the Roman empire. His former colleague was a good judge of character and Octavian saw no reason to disturb the arrangements he had made. So far as directly governed provinces were concerned, trustworthy colleagues were appointed in due course as proconsuls; for example, Cicero’s son, Marcus, frequently drunk but a safe pair of hands, was given Syria.

The newly formed province of Armenia was irretrievably lost, for its deposed king had seized the distraction of the Actium campaign to reclaim his realm. Octavian coolly ignored this insult to Roman power and interests. The question of what to do about the eastern frontier—the Armenians, the Medes, and behind them the fierce Parthians, who still held the lost standards of Crassus—would have to wait. He was too busy.