Actium, Roman Empire

In Rome, the Triumvirs rule. The only remnants left of the Republic are the pointless meetings in the Senate House, and the son of Pompey, Sextus, who (ironically) fights for the republican cause with a pirate’s fleet. The three men divide up the Roman world: to Antony go the rich lands of the East, to Lepidus, North Africa, and to Octavian, Italy, Gaul, and Illyricum. 

In the East, Antony meets with the Queen of Egypt, Cleopatra VII. Egypt is the richest country in the Mediterranean world and the last place west of the Parthian Empire (the freezing backwaters of Germania and Britannia excluded) that remains outside of Rome’s grasp. Cleopatra is wary of Roman influence, which hovers over Egypt like a hawk, and with the death of Caesar needs a new Roman ally. Cleopatra can provide Antony with the almost inexhaustible wealth of Egypt, as well as ships and soldiers to fight Octavian. In return, he will safeguard her rights as queen. 

Lepidus, like Crassus, is quickly sidelined, Sextus’ fleet is destroyed, and soon, the whole Roman world is split between Octavian and Antony. In Rome, Octavian begins a propaganda campaign against his purported ally. He uses Roman stereotypes of Easterners as corrupt, decadent, effeminate and cruel to cast Antony as a traitorous foreign despot. He charges that Anthony is manipulated and dominated by the honeyed words of his Egyptian lover, and is waiting in the wings to bring his tyranny to Rome. Then, in a masterstroke, Octavian seizes Antony’s will, left in the care of Rome’s Vestal Virgins. In it, Antony has named his children with Cleopatra as successors to various eastern provinces (remember, these provinces were meant to belong to the Roman people, and were not any one man's to give away) and stipulates a wish to be buried in Alexandria. 

Octavian stokes the outrage of the Roman people. Framing himself as a true protector of Roman values and morals, he convinces them that only he can restore the Republic and bring peace to the Roman world. Octavian goes to the Senate and asks them to vote for war against Egypt (though not Antony personally), framing his struggle as that against a foreign tyrant manipulating a weak-willed Roman general.

As is tradition, a spear is cast into the symbolic territory of Egypt in Rome, and Octavian’s fleet sets off to confront Cleopatra. The final battle in the history of the Roman Republic takes place at Actium, in the straits of the Peloponnese, southern Greece. Octavian blockades Antony and Cleopatra’s fleet, cutting off their supplies. On the eve of battle, a series of Roman commanders, furious at taking orders from the foreign queen, defect to Octavian’s side. Antony and Cleopatra’s forces are hungry, demoralised, depleted and trapped. They must make the first move. 

Antony sends his massive, hulking ships at Octavian’s line, but his admiral Agrippa counters, swarming the Antonians with smaller, more manoeuvrable crafts, boarding them and setting them alight. In a panic, Cleopatra flees as Octavian’s forces advance, taking with her 60 ships and any hope of victory. Antony follows suit, and the battle of Actium is over; Octavian is triumphant.

Octavian pursues Antony and Cleopatra to Egypt. As he arrives, Antony’s army abandons him, forcing him to make a final stand in the Royal Palace in Alexandria. With Octavian at his door, Antony and Cleopatra commit suicide, preferring death to being dragged through the streets in Octavian’s Triumph. Rome claims Cleopatra’s throne, adding Egypt to its empire, and Octavian achieves the city’s greatest conquest since Scipio Africanus took Carthage. He sets sail for Rome, his Rome.

With the death of Antony and Cleopatra, there is one man left standing. On his return, Octavian is granted the name Augustus (meaning something like ‘the illustrious one’) by the Senate. With this title, he places himself far above the community of equals that rule the city and closer to something like a divinity. He has brought peace to his country, he has completed the Roman revolution, and he has become emperor. 

During his wars abroad, Augustus adds more territory to the empire than any other politician hence. He turns a patchwork of provinces, dependencies and client states into one, cohesive whole. An empire ruled by one people, from one city, by one man. The Republic is finally dead, and from it rises the Roman Empire.