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The defeat of Brutus and Cassius at the Battle of Philippi meant that the last of Julius Caesar's assassins were dead. Within the Roman state, unrestricted political power now flowed down to Caesar's 3 political successors. The so-called Second Triumvirate. His adopted son Octavian, co-consul at the time of his death Antony, and his second-in-command at the time of his death Lepidus. Octavian and Antony were still in Greece, fresh from their victory at Philippi, while Lepidus was holding things down in the capital. In the immediate aftermath of Philippi, Octavian behaved with remarkable and unnecessary cruelty.
He amused his soldiers by torturing prisoners, including many famous senators and aristocrats from back home. At one point he put on a big production where he forced fathers and sons to draw straws to see which one would be executed. One well known politician begged Octavian to at least send his body back to Rome so that his family could have a proper funeral. Octavian replied coldly, "the birds will see to your funeral." Real sicko stuff. In the days and weeks that followed, Octavian and Antony met in private to discuss the new political situation that they found themselves in.
The Battle of Philippi had been (perhaps) the largest battle in Roman history, and in order to field such a massive army, Octavian and Antony had made equally massive promises to their soldiers and supporters. For instance, now that the battle was won they owed every soldier something like 22 years of back pay. An absurd sum of money, especially at a time when the Roman treasury was empty from years of civil war. As their discussions progressed, one name kept on coming up. Lepidus. It turns out that neither of them really trusted Lepidus.
Apparently there were rumours at the time that he was at the center of some kind of conspiracy back in Rome. We don't have enough information to evaluate whether or not these rumours were true, but the important thing is that Octavian and Antony found them troubling. There in Greece, the victors of Philippi agreed to turn on their ally. They got out a map and split Lepidus's possessions among themselves. Under this new agreement, Antony, as the senior partner, would oversee Transalpine Gaul and much of the Roman east.
Octavian, as the junior partner, would oversee Spain. Lepidus would formally remain their ally, but in a much reduced state, confined to the Roman province of Africa. Italy would remain neutral ground. As part of this rearrangement, they agreed to formally incorporate Cisalpine Gaul into Italy, which had long been a dream of Caesar's before his death. With a deal struck, Octavian and Antony parted ways. Octavian would return to Rome and begin the slow and difficult process of paying out Rome's veterans. Antony would head east and begin a reorganization of Rome's long-neglected eastern provinces.
From this point forward, Octavian and Antony's paths radically diverged. They would see each other a handful of times over the coming decade, but for the most part, each was off in their own little world, dealing with their own unique crises and having virtually nothing to do with each other. Today, we're going to focus our attention on Octavian and follow his path. Next time, we'll follow Antony's. Octavian returned to Rome, where he was immediately tasked with the truly thankless job of finding back pay for some 50,000 retiring soldiers.
Italy was already suffering under an economic depression, and the Roman treasury was empty. Recall that Octavian and Antony had paid for the war by forcing Italian farmers to send half of their harvest to the Roman state. With no available money and no easy solutions, Octavian leaned into his autocratic instincts and began to simply confiscate farmland and redistribute it to retiring soldiers. Farmers were not compensated for their this, it was little more than theft. Of course, special exemptions and carve-outs were created for friendly Senators and rich landowners, because of course.
This meant that the sudden seizure of property fell disproportionately on the poor, tens of thousands of whom were suddenly made homeless and destitute. The Romans had this romanticized notion of themselves that said that good soldiers made good farmers, which of course is nonsense. Farmers actually had to work every day! And so when retiring soldiers were dropped onto a farm expecting a relaxing retirement, the high workload gave them a nasty shock.
That year, Italy suffered an unusually high rate of crop failures, mostly due to inexperience. The price of food went through the roof, and the poorest citizens began to starve. Italy began to suffer under a famine. Most displaced farmers moved to big cities where they struggled. Many never made it off the streets. A minority became fully radicalized by the seizure of their farms. Banditry became a problem everywhere, all at once, mostly because of ex-farmers who had nothing left to lose.
It became so bad that armies of bandits actually got together and attacked small cities and seized their granaries, which in turn triggered mass starvation. This whole situation enraged the people. None of this was an act of nature, none of it had to happen. Bad politics and bad politicians were to blame. Octavian and Antony had never been particularly popular, but now, they were despised. Through their meddling, the life of the average Roman citizen had become objectively worse. Who would defend the interests of the poor Italian farmers?
Oh, nobody? Okay. Who would *PRETEND* to defend the interests of the poor Italian farmers in order to cynically further their own political career? Lucius Antonius, brother of Mark Antony? Okay, cool. Lucius Antonius had been elected consul for the year of 41 B.C.E., probably with his brother's help. As the political winds began to shift, Lucius abruptly turned against Octavian and took up the cause of the Italian farmers. He called 8 friendly legions down from the north and marched on Rome, occupying the city.
We don't know much about this occupation, but we do know that it was brief. As Octavian began raising legions to the south, it quickly became clear that Lucius would not be able to hold the city. He marched north to meet up with some of Antony's generals from Transalpine Gaul. Lucius assumed that the generals were coming south to lend a hand, but he was mistaken. Instead, they had one simple question for him. Was he acting on his own behalf, or was he acting on behalf of his brother?
Was Lucius off on his own freelancing, or was this the first salvo in another civil war? Lucius was evasive, and refused to give the generals a straight answer. More than 2,000 years later, we still don't know the answer to this question. Antony would later deny any knowledge of the whole affair, but.he would say that, wouldn't he? I suspect that there may have been a secret agreement between the two brothers, and I'll tell you why. Because Antony's wife Fulvia was in on it.
She personally raised legions of her own and marched north at her brother-in-law's side. Who's that? Enter Marcus Agrippa. Octavian and Agrippa had been close friends since childhood, and when Octavian came to power, he made a point of bringing Agrippa along as an aide on all of his campaigns. In many ways the two were opposites, which may be while they got along so well. Agrippa was an emotional man of action, whereas Octavian was slow and methodical and calm, freakishly calm. Agrippa was strong and active, whereas Octavian was physically small and weak and perpetually sick.
Agrippa aspired to be a great military leader, whereas Octavian did not, and seemed bored and disengaged by all things military in nature. The two were an unlikely pair, but their bond was strong, and their skills complimented each other. Octavian put Agrippa in charge of his legions and sent him north. Empowering Agrippa was the smartest thing he could have done, because in no time at all Lucius had been outmanoeuvred and trapped in the fortified town of Perusia.
Fulvia and others marched to his aid, but Agrippa intercepted them early and pushed them back. Over the winter months, Agrippa besieged the town. Lucius tried to break out several times, but every attempt failed. He constantly talked about his brother, and held out hope that Antony was on his way with an army from the east. But Antony never came. After months trapped inside the town, Lucius and friends negotiated a surrender. As part of this deal, Lucius and Fulvia would be allowed to go free.
Fulvia fled east to be with her husband, and Lucius, believe it or not, was allowed to continue his political career and would go on to serve as governor in Spain. The town of Perusia, on the other hand, for the grave crime of being occupied against their will, would be looted and burned for harbouring traitors. You can begin to see why Octavian and friends were so unpopular with the Roman people! According to some sources, Octavian ordered all high ranking prisoners that were not protected by the peace deal back to Rome.
He took these prisoners - some 300 senators and aristocrats - to the brand new temple of Julius Caesar, which was still under construction. There, he had them put to death. I don't want to over-state things, but if you go by the way it's described in the sources, this was a human sacrifice in all but name. They didn't have to die, and they certainly didn't have to die in Caesar's temple, but Octavian insisted. What a sick man.
Octavian and Agrippa were growing increasingly uncomfortable with their political arrangement with Antony. The thing with Lucius was a close call, if he had been able to win the support of Antony's generals from Gaul the whole thing might have gone down differently. In 40 B.C.E., one of these generals died unexpectedly. Octavian and Agrippa saw this as an opening, and seized control of the dead man's 11 legions in Gaul. This was an act of aggression, and it was in open breach of the agreement with Antony.
Antony dropped everything and immediately started making his way back to Italy, escorted by a massive fleet of ships. But when he arrived at the port city of Brundisium, there were a series of misunderstandings. The locals saw Antony's fleet and closed off their harbour and prepared for battle. Antony interpreted this as an act of war, and ordered a blockade of the port. When Octavian learned of the standoff at Brundisium, he personally went down there to try to work something out. As messages started going back and forth between the two camps, it quickly became clear that nobody wanted this fight.
This was especially true of the rank-and-file soldiers, who were only a couple of years removed from the last civil war against Brutus and Cassius. There was some indication that if violence broke out between Octavian and Antony, many on both sides would simply refuse to fight. The two sides began formal negotiations to see if they could come to a more stable and long-lasting arrangement. This would become known as the Treaty of Brundisium.
They agreed to re-split the Roman world. Broadly speaking, Octavian would take the west, and Antony would take the east. Lepidus would remain a minor third partner, and would retain control of the province of Africa. Italy would remain neutral ground. This time, the two made sure that there was very little overlap in their areas of control, and promised to stay out of each other's way going forward.
It may seem that Octavian got the better part of this deal, and he kinda did, but don't forget how powerful and rich the Roman east was compared to the Roman west. Antony was still in the stronger position, and was growing richer by the day. Stability was in his interest, and if Gaul kept Octavian happy that was perfectly fine. Antony agreed to cement the alliance by marrying Octavian's sister Octavia. Antony's wife Fulvia had died suddenly shortly after she went east to meet up with him.
The ancient sources say that she died of natural causes, and I almost believe them. With the Treaty of Brundisium out of the way, Octavian turned his attention to an ongoing crisis just off the coast of Italy. The crisis had a name. Sextus Pompeius, Boat King, Pirate King, son of Pompey Magnus, beloved of Neptune god of the sea, at least according to him. Sextus had suffered defeat in Spain at the hands of Caesar years earlier, but he'd been a busy beaver in the years since.
Sextus blew through the Mediterranean like a hurricane. He captured the Roman province of Sicily, which he transformed into his base of operations. Around this time he also began to wear a unique blue cloak and associate himself with the Roman god of the sea. He then launched attacks against the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. Sextus hoped that soon he would grow strong enough to threaten Spain and north Africa. Octavian perhaps didn't fully appreciate this threat in the beginning, but recently things had really started to get ugly.
Recall that Octavian's poor economic policies had already caused farm yields across Italy to plummet. On top of that, consider that Sicily kinda served Rome's breadbasket, a major producer of food for the capital, but now that was cut off. More expensive food began to be shipped in from the all corners of the Empire, but Sextus used his strong position in the dead centre of the Mediterranean to systematically target Rome's shipping lanes. Italy was already struggling under a famine, and this made it way worse. Shortly before the Treaty of Brundisium, during a moment of high tension with Antony, Octavian married a distant relation of Sextus named Scribonia in an effort to maybe set up a future
alliance. The marriage was an unhappy one, and after the agreement was reached with Antony, it became unnecessary. On the day that their first and only daughter was born, the couple sought a divorce. As the famine on the mainland grew worse, the people turned on Octavian. They recognized the powerful symbolism of the son of Caesar taking on the son of Pompey, but they didn't think it was cute. This wasn't a game, people's lives were being destroyed. Rome had a policy of handing out free food to its poorest citizens, but the granaries were empty, they couldn't keep up with demand, people were literally starving in the streets.
Ever since Caesar crossed the Rubicon 10 years ago, Rome had entered into a death spiral of civil war after civil war. People could barely even remember why they were fighting anymore, and they blamed the pride and the vanity of their leaders for taking them down this path. This is why, as the situation with Sextus began to heat up, Octavian got ambushed by an angry mob on his way back from the Forum. He escaped with his life, but not before a large number of Roman civilians were killed at the hands of his soldiers. As you can imagine, this did nothing to help his popularity.
Octavian could see that with domestic unrest, he was holding a weak hand. He approached Sextus's mother, who was still in Rome, and told her that he would be open to negotiations with her son. Sextus agreed to a meeting. Octavian invited Antony back from the east, and all three of them met near the coastal city of Misenum. Remember, Sextus's father Pompey had been murdered when he went ashore to negotiate with the Egyptians. Sextus didn't want to give his enemies the same oppor-tuna-ty, and so he insisted that
two large wooden platform were built out in the sea, some distance from the coast. Sextus and his advisors stood on the platform furthest out to sea, within visual range of his fleet. Octavian, Antony, and their advisors stood on the platform nearest the coast. They were quite a distance apart, each side had to shout to be heard. Despite the awkward setup, negotiations were successful. Octavian and Antony agreed to officially install Sextus as the governor of all of the territory that he had captured so far, plus southern Greece.
They also agreed to let him run for consul for the following year. In return, Sextus agreed to open the shipping lanes, easing the famine and allowing grain to flow freely into Rome once more. The agreement with Sextus sent a strong signal to the Roman world. Octavian and Antony were not seeking another civil war. There would be no further recriminations. Any senators or politicians who had found themselves on the wrong side of any of the last several civil wars were free to return to Rome.
This was great news for a man who had been on the wrong side of several civil wars lately, Tiberius Claudius Nero. He had started his career by taking a highly principled stand against the First Triumvirate, the alliance between Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus. When Caesar crossed the Rubicon, he abandoned those principles and became a loyal Caesarian. When Caesar was assassinated, he abandoned those principles and became a loyal follower of Caesar's assassins. After their defeat at the Battle of Philippi, he abandoned those principles and became a loyal follower of Antony. After returning to Rome and being elected to office as one of Antony's men, he abandoned
those principles and joined up with Antony's brother Lucius and his wife Fulvia when they rose up against Octavian. Actually.that one's iffy. After Lucius surrendered, Tiberius Claudius Nero tried to get a pro-Antony slave revolt going in southern Italy, which Antony immediately disavowed. After his pro-Antony revolt failed, he abandoned those principles and fled to Sicily, where he became a loyal follower of Sextus. In time it became clear that Sextus didn't want anything to do with him, so he abandoned those principles and went to Greece to re-join Antony, taking with him his pregnant wife and son.
Antony (inexplicably) welcomed him back, but refused to entrust him with a real job, and so he sent him to Sparta to oversee some stuff that did not really require overseeing. We don't know exactly what happened in Sparta, but it was something bad, because Tiberius Claudius Nero was forced to flee in the middle of the night with his pregnant wife and son into the woods. During their flight, a random lightning strike ignited a forest fire, and Tiberius Claudius Nero and his family were cut off and eventually encircled by the blaze. At one point the flames got so close that his wife's hair caught fire.
Against all odds, they survived the night with nothing more than minor burns and singed clothing. Tiberius Claudius Nero's wife went by the name of Livia, and she would go on to become the first Empress of Rome. Their son, who shared his father's name, would later be known to history as the Emperor Tiberius. And so it came as no surprise when Tiberius Claudius Nero abandoned Antony and his principles by answering Octavian's call to return to Rome. Clearly his career wasn't going as planned. Octavian and Livia hit it off immediately at some social function. He was impressed by her quick wit and intelligence, and the fact that she seemingly could teach a master class on Roman politics.
This was a reputation that Livia would keep for her entire life, by the way. In her old age she was lovingly described as "Ulysses in a frock." She was also a member of the extended Claudii family, which was without a doubt the most powerful family in Rome. The Claudii were the most aristocratic of the aristocratic families, with a proud political legacy that went all the way back to the founding of the Republic, almost 500 years ago. By my count there had been at least 25 Claudii consuls over the last 200 years.
The Claudii were so full of themselves that they didn't even like their members associating with lesser families. You might note that Tiberius Claudius Nero, Livia's husband, was also a Claudii. Soon after their first meeting, a plan was hatched for Livia to leave her current husband and marry Octavian. Her current marriage was had been a political match anyways, so everyone was fine with this. In fact, Octavian would help advance Tiberius Claudius Nero's career in the years to come. Octavian and Livia consulted with some priests, and decided to put a hold on things until still-pregnant Livia gave birth. In the mean time, they moved in together.
Three days after the birth of her second son, Livia divorced, and immediately remarried. Livia was on her second marriage by the age of 20. Octavian was 24, and on his third. The Romans did things differently, man, what can I say? Octavian's marriage to Livia coincided with a period of peace within the Republic. Antony went back east, Sextus was made governor, and the famine within Italy began to subside. But it was all a big lie.
Octavian had no intention of allowing Sextus to serve as governor, let alone consul. This whole thing was just a way to buy time. With money finally trickling back into Rome, Octavian committed all of it to a massive shipbuilding program. For the time being nobody said why they were building ships, but everyone knew. In 38 B.C.E., Octavian launched a surprise attack against Sextus by throwing his entire fleet at Sicily. It went badly, mostly due to bad weather, bad ship design, badly trained sailors, and badly underestimating Boat King Sextus Pompeius.
Over half of Octavian's fleet was destroyed, and the rest fled for their lives and scattered. Octavian had taken Rome's limited wealth and bet it all on this surprise attack. He lost, and now it was all gone. When news broke of Octavian's defeat, there were riots in the capital, and I don't blame them. Sextus's blockade snapped back into place, and famine returned to Italy. Clearly, Octavian had miscalculated. He recalled Agrippa from Gaul, and gave him absolute authority over a new naval campaign.
By the way, during his time in Gaul Agrippa had technically qualified for a Triumph, but after Octavian's defeat at sea he decided to forgo the honour so that his partner could avoid embarrassment. At this time, Octavian and Antony met up to formally renew their alliance for another 5 years. As part of this deal, they agreed to swap some military assets. Octavian desperately needed ships, and Antony desperately needed legions. Antony immediately transferred the ships to Octavian, and Octavian promised to raise new legions and send them east as soon as possible.
Spoiler alert, they were never sent. There was (and is) a giant volcanic lake in southern Italy that Agrippa decided to make use of as he began rebuilding Octavian's fleet. It still exists, now known as Lake Avernus. In Agrippa's time it was famous because according to legend, it was right next to a cave that Odysseus used to travel down to the underworld. After digging a short canal to the sea, Agrippa built for himself a state-of-the-art harbour and shipbuilding facility on the lake, and named it Port Julius. At the time this lake was surrounded by trees on all sides, which made the secret harbour
invisible to any enemy ships. Quite clever. Over the next several months, he built and trained a new fleet from scratch. Meanwhile, Octavian convinced Lepidus to support his campaign against Sextus. Lepidus was only the governor of Africa, but since his province was on the frontier he had access to considerable resources. When Agrippa was ready, he and Octavian launched a second invasion of Sicily. This time, Lepidus attacked simultaneously from the south.
Octavian & Agrippa's fleet was intercepted by Sextus. Despite all that secret training, most of Agrippa's brand new fleet was destroyed. These ships were also carrying an invasion force, and so tens of thousands of legionaries perished in the water. It was a disaster. But it wasn't a complete loss. Some ships made it through, and a few legions landed on the island. Word quickly arrived reporting that Lepidus had successfully broke through, and landed at least 12 legions on the southern tip of the island.
Now things were really cookin'. The battle for Sicily was on. The unfortunate thing is that Octavian and Agrippa couldn't really do anything about their stranded legions in northern Sicily. They were mostly out of ships and mostly out of legions. But over the next several days, that started to change. Ships belonging to Lepidus that had been damaged or chased off during the initial invasion started showing up off the coast of Italy. When they added everything together, these ships were carrying the equivalent of something like 4 legions. That was something they could work with! If they could break through Sextus's blockade again, they could reinforce those stranded
legions in northern Sicily. Even if it wasn't enough to face Sextus in open battle, it would be enough to dig in and hold the enemy back until Lepidus could work his way up from the south. But how to break the blockade? They would need a distraction. Octavian and Agrippa decided to deliberately provoke a naval battle. Then, when Sextus was committed, they would slip a small number of transports over to Sicily. This was a risky move! They were sending the majority of their remaining fleet on a suicide mission. But they thought it was worth it. If they took Sicily, the war would end.
Agrippa personally took command of the fleet, while Octavian went on the transports with the legions. One of Sextus's patrols just happened to spot the transports. Bad, dumb luck. Half of the ships were destroyed, but Octavian and about two legions somehow survived and made it to shore. That evening, as the sun was setting, Sextus's fleet appeared on the horizon. It confirmed everybody's worst fears. Agrippa's fleet had been destroyed. They were cut off from the north once more, trapped.
Almost simultaneously, news arrived from the south that a large enemy army was on its way. Bad, bad. The legions threw up some rudimentary defences and prepared for an imminent attack. They would stay at full readiness all through the night. Then Octavian was like "SEEMS LIKE YOU GOT THINGS UNDER CONTROL," and left. That is not a joke. He took the fastest remaining ship, and bravely ran away (away) under the cover of darkness. He promised to send help once he returned to Italy.
He made it back to the mainland, but just barely. The ship dropped him off in the middle of nowhere, but instead of running off to get help, Octavian spent half a day hiding in a cave. It was finally dawning on him that the war was probably lost. Eventually, he started slowly making his way to the nearest city. When he arrived, he learned that he had been missing a vital piece of information. That suicide mission that he had sent the fleet on, it had gone much better than expected! Agrippa was alive! They took on a much larger fleet and fought them to a draw! In the time since, Agrippa had won a series of minor victories at sea.
The wind was at their back, baby! Octavian & Agrippa quickly threw together some more transport ships, and as soon as they saw an opportunity, they went all in. Finally, they pulled off a successful crossing. At the end of this process, Octavian & Agrippa and Lepidus had a combined force of something like 23 legions on Sicily, which would have been at 60,000 soldiers at least, probably more. With an invasion force of that size, it was only a matter of time until Sextus lost the island. He needed to change the direction of the war.
He decided to force a large-scale naval battle. His natural advantage was at sea, and one major victory would cut off the invasion force again. The engagement would take place in September of 36 B.C.E., just off the coast of Sicily. It would later be known as the Battle of Naulochus. Sextus and Agrippa each personally commanded their fleets, while Octavian watched from shore. Actually, that's not quite true. As soon as the fleets started moving toward each other, Octavian walked away from his
advisors and lay flat on the ground, staring at the sky. People came over a few times to give him progress updates, but he didn't even respond. The dude just didn't like all this military stuff. He didn't move for many hours, until somebody informed him that it was all over. Agrippa had won. It was a decisive victory. Sextus's fleet was no more. After such a staggering loss at sea, Sextus's legions on Sicily surrendered.
The war was over. Sextus fled east, but when Antony's people discovered that he was secretly in communication with the Parthian king, he was captured and executed. With the war over, ships from Sicily began to fill Rome's granaries once more. The famine was slowly brought to an end. For years, Octavian had remained dangerously unpopular with the people of Rome. But now, they hailed him as a hero. All was forgiven. But Lepidus wasn't happy. The conquest of Sicily belonged to him. The climactic final battle never would have happened without Lepidus's breakthrough in the south. If it wasn't for him, they'd still be fighting and they'd still be losing.
After accepting the surrender of Sextus's land forces, Lepidus's army had ballooned from 12 to 20 legions. He demanded to be taken seriously. Octavian asked Lepidus to remove his legions from Sicily, but he refused. Lepidus demanded to be made governor of Sicily, as well as Sardinia, Corsica, basically all of Sextus's former possessions. Octavian went to Sicily to work something out. He entered Lepidus's camp, where he was cheered and saluted by Lepidus's soldiers, because, 'ya know, they had all just won a war together.
When Lepidus was informed of Octavian's presence, he ordered him expelled from the camp. It's not clear what happened next. Somebody either threw a javelin at Octavian and missed, or tried to stab him and had their blade deflected by body armour. Next, he either made a rousing speech to Lepidus's soldiers, or he didn't. Either way he then fled back outside the camp, to his bodyguards.
None of Lepidus's soldiers tried to stop him, which implies that the man who attacked him may have been acting on his own. Octavian waited outside the camp. Some of Lepidus's soldiers decided to pack up and follow him, but not many. Several hours later, Octavian's legions showed up. More and more of Lepidus's soldiers decided to leave, and pretty soon that trickle turned into a wave. It's unclear whether Octavian made any specific promises, but we do know that by the end of the day Lepidus's army had basically evaporated.
That evening, Lepidus came out of his camp and personally surrendered to Octavian. This is such a weird incident. It feels like parts of the story are embellished or fictionalized, but it's hard for me to tell which parts. We do know that Lepidus was pretty unpopular with his soldiers, and that there was absolutely no appetite among the rank-and-file for another civil war. It's not impossible that there was a mass defection, but something's missing, I doubt very much that it went down exactly in this way.
Regardless, Octavian reached a harsh settlement with Lepidus. He accused him of inciting rebellion, seized his legions and his provinces, and expelled him from the Triumvirate. But oddly, Octavian didn't take his title. Pontifex Maximus. Lepidus had won the election to serve as Rome's chief priest shortly after Julius Caesar's murder, and for whatever reason, Octavian felt that this was a line that he could not cross. Lepidus entered into a forced retirement in a seaside town outside Rome. He would return to Rome periodically on Senate business, but not often, and not for long.
He would retain the title of Pontifex Maximus for another 23 years, until he died of natural causes at the age of 76. In the mean time, peace returned to Rome. For now. Octavian had consolidated power in the west, and with the famine coming to an end, he actually had the support of the people for the first time in his political career. This is all in sharp contrast to Antony. Things in the east had grown incredibly strange. Next time, we'll explore that strangeness, and follow Antony's path to the brink of war.
