Presentation Of Actium

Question 1

Details of actium

Answer 1

Victory 31bc (2nd september)- beat mark antony and cleopatra.
Had spent 34-31 fighting over Mediterranean
-seutonius augustus

He would have victory over Actium-
Suetonius: defeated him in a naval engagement near Actium

Following battle sailed to Alexandria where both Antony and Cleopatra had fled, to deal with them both and by proxy secure his position more concretely

Extracts from Suetonius, Augustus, 17:
-Suetonius: Drove Antony to kill himself … Saw his corpse
-Suetonius: Cleopatra he anxiously wished to save for his triumph … bit to death by an Asp
-Suetonius: Children which Antony had by Cleopatra he saved, brought up … as if they had been his own relations

Question 2

Nikopolis

Answer 2

Nikopolis
Founded a city near the battle site, citizens from surrounding sites to populate it, Nikopolis
-Suetonius, Augustus: Built Nicopolis on that part of the coast … games to be celebrated every five years … old temple of Apollo … ornamented with Naval trophies spot which he had camped, consecrating it to Neptune and Mars
-Strabo, Geography: Augustus Caesar dedicated one tenth of the ships used in war to decorate … ten banks of oars

Question 3

Poets and other sources

Answer 3

Utilised literature through poets, close friend Maecina had built up a network of skilled poets to be used.

Presented the battle as being against some great foreign threat rather than a continuation of a civil war:
Virgil, Aeneid: Opposing…his Egyptian Spouse
Horace, Ode: Egypts dame threatened our power in dust to lay

The Res Gestae (Augustus’ own accounts) presented Octavian as the figurehead for Rome here:
‘demanded (Octavian) as its commander for the war’

(Velleius Paterculus) Upon return to Rome, Octavian was greeted with ‘huge crowds and universal acclaim’ upon his return from his campaigns in Actium, and subsequently Dalmatia and Egypt