Actium, 2 September 31 BC

The battle, stage by stage

1. Summer 31 BC

   The blockade

   Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII have brought their fleet and army to the Ambracian Gulf, meaning to carry the war to Italy. Instead they are penned in. Antony's ships lie inside the gulf; his army is encamped beside the sanctuary of Apollo at Actium, on the level ground of the southern headland, and towers guard both sides of the narrow mouth (Dio 50.12). Octavian has landed in Epirus and camped on high ground to the north, on the hill of Mikalitsi where he later built his victory monument, with walls running down to his outer harbor at Komaros on the open sea. Earlier in the year Marcus Agrippa took Methone in the Peloponnese, and before the battle he stormed Leucas, seized Patrae and Corinth, and twice beat Antony's ships (Velleius 2.84), cutting the supply routes from Egypt. Hunger, disease and desertion follow. Positions of the fleets are schematic.

2. 2 September 31 BC, morning

   The fleets come out

   After days of storm, the sea is calm. Antony's fleet rows out through the strait and forms line 'a little outside' it (Dio), in three squadrons: Antony himself with Publicola on the right, Marcus Octavius and Marcus Insteius in the center, and on the left Sosius (Plutarch names Coelius). Cleopatra's 60 ships wait behind the center. Antony tells his heavy ships to stand as if at anchor and let the enemy come to them in the narrows (Plutarch 65). Octavian's fleet forms about 8 stades (roughly 1.5 km) away: Agrippa on the left, Arruntius in the center, Octavian on the right with Lurius (Velleius instead gives Lurius the right and Arruntius the left). The two armies stand on the shores and watch: Canidius for Antony, Taurus for Octavian. Numbers are uncertain: Plutarch says Antony had at least 500 warships before he burned the ships he could not man; later writers give him about 170 to 200 at the battle against roughly 250 to 400 for Octavian.

3. About noon (the sixth hour)

   The lines stretch

   For hours neither side moves. Then, with a wind rising from the sea, Antony's left wing advances; Octavian's right backs water to draw the enemy out of the narrows into open sea, where his lighter ships can maneuver (Plutarch 65). Neither side can ram well, and the fighting becomes a battle of grapnels, missiles and fire, 'like a siege' with several of Octavian's ships around each big one. Agrippa extends his wing northward to outflank Antony; Publicola follows to stop him, and a gap opens between Antony's right and his center (Plutarch 66). The northern extension shown here is a reconstruction; the sources give no distances.

4. Early afternoon

   Cleopatra breaks through

   While the battle is still undecided, Cleopatra's 60 ships hoist their sails and run straight through the middle of the fighting, throwing it into disorder, then catch the wind and head south for the Peloponnese (Plutarch 66). The ancient writers, following Augustan accounts, call it panic or betrayal. Many modern historians, from Kromayer (1899) through Tarn and Carter, see a planned breakout timed for the afternoon northwesterly: the ships carried their sails and the war chest. Lange (2011) argues instead for the ancient picture of a battle Antony meant to win. The route shown is conjectural.

5. Afternoon

   Antony follows

   Antony sees Cleopatra's ships go and follows her. He leaves his flagship for a quinquereme, taking only two companions, and is taken aboard her ship (Plutarch 66-67). Some of his ships may have got away with them; most do not. Velleius sums it up: Antony 'chose to be the companion of the fleeing queen rather than of his fighting soldiers.' Behind him the fleet fights on, with Agrippa working around its northern flank. The escape route around Leucas is a reconstruction: Plutarch only says the ships made for the Peloponnese, and they reached Taenarum.

6. Late afternoon to evening

   Fire and surrender

   Left without their commander, Antony's crews fight on for hours. Dio describes Octavian's men closing in with fire, throwing torches and pots of burning charcoal and pitch onto the big ships. Plutarch says the fleet held out until the tenth hour (about 4 PM) and gave up reluctantly once a rising sea had battered it; Velleius has the crews surrender on Octavian's promise of pardon. Octavian's own memoirs, as quoted by Plutarch, claimed 300 ships taken and no more than 5,000 dead. At least 36 bronze rams from the captured ships, ranging from 'fours' up to 'tens', were later mounted on his victory monument.

7. About 3-9 September 31 BC

   The army gives up

   Antony's land army, 19 legions and 12,000 horse by Plutarch's count, holds together for seven days, waiting for news of its general. Then Canidius slips away by night and the leaderless troops go over to Octavian (Plutarch 68); Dio says the army was retreating toward Macedonia when Octavian caught up with it and won it over without a fight. Octavian dedicates captured warships 'from a trireme up to a ten' to Apollo of Actium and founds Nikopolis, the 'City of Victory', beside his camp. His camp hill becomes the Campsite Memorial, with the rams mounted on its front. Antony and Cleopatra die in Alexandria the following year.