Why did Mark Anthony lose the Battle of Actium? Since the days of William Shakespeare, Rome commander Mark Antony and Egyptian Queen Cleopatra the seventh has been portrayed as a romantic tragedy of lovers by writers, playwrights, and current film makes. This history has been derived primarily from classical Greco-Roman authors as Plutarch who wrote about the “Life of Markus Antonius”. Plutarch’s work follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony from the time of the Parthian War to Cleopatra’s suicide. Playwrights, poets, and film makers have portrayed Octavius Caesar as the antagonist who was one of Antony’s fellow triumvirs and the future first emperor of Rome. However, serious military historians realize that the real tragedy was revealed in the battle of Actium where Anthony and Cleopatra were done in by Antony’s foolish battle tactics, Cleopatra’s premature departure from the naval battle, and Octavian’s superior generalship.

Actium Battlefield Analysis

The battle of Actium began on September 2, 31 B.C.E. This was a decisive naval confrontation fought near the peninsula of Actium between the Roman fleet of Octavian Augustus Caesar and under the command of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, and a united Roman-Egyptian fleet commanded by Mark Antony and Cleopatra. The battle epitomized the height of the old rivalry between Antony and Octavian for domination of the Roman world that had been preceded by a long period of civil warfare.

Antony, who was accompanied by 70,000 infantrymen and 500 naval warships, prepared his camp at Actium, where lies the southern side of the strait leading from the Ionian Sea into the Ambracian Gulf. Octavian, who was armed with 80,000 infantrymen and 400 naval warships, came from the north and, by occupying Corinth and Patrae, where he managed to cutoff Antony’s southward communications with Egypt by the Peloponnese.

In opposition to the advice of his generals and supposedly by the request of Cleopatra, who was looking for a chance to depart for Egypt, Antony prematurely launched the preliminary phase of this military engagement. Elements of Antony’s navy of roughly 220 heavy craft equipped with missile-throwing weapons made its offensive attack at close range. Components of Octavian’s flotilla of some 260 light vessels with greater maneuverability responded to Antony’s offensive attack. The ensuing naval battle was violently contested, where each side’s

squadrons were aggressively attempting to outflank the other. The result of the battle remained in doubt until Cleopatra, apparently troubled by an enemy maneuver, ordered the Egyptian contingent, of about 60 vessels, to withdraw from the battle. Antony himself followed her, but most of his remaining vessels were soon engulf and obliterate. The remaining Roman-Egyptian fleet became disheartened and they later surrendered to Octavian before Antony’s land army surrendered one week later.

Antony’s Battle Tactics

The battle of Actium finished decades of Roman civil war and facilitated the rise of the first Roman Emperor. Antony’s apparently illogical battle tactics killed him, destroyed his armies, and contributed to the suicide of his famous wife, Cleopatra. Speculations over Antony’s motivations for abandoning the battle and chasing Cleopatra’s ship have fed intellectual speculations for celebrated historians, poets, philosophers, academics, and writers for centuries.

While Mark Antony’s tactics were dubious, the outcome of this ancient conflict may have been different if Mark Antony, who was a proven military commander, was the primary tactician in this battle for world domination because Cleopatra was not known for her unders

tanding of military tactics in naval warfare. Her premature departure from the naval battle probably destroyed the moral of her Egyptian fighting men, which probably contributed to Egypt’s defeat at Actium. The lessons in this conflict reveals why the business of warfare should be conducted by the military commanders and not by political leaders who do not understand the art and science of military strategy, tactics, and operations. Political leaders should always make provisions to inspire and elevate the moral of their fighting men and women because sometimes victory can be snatch from the jaws of defeat.

Related Sources: Holmes, Richard. Battlefield Decisive Conflicts in History. Oxford University Press, 2006. Neslson, Ph.D., Eric; The Roman Empire; Indianapolis: Alpha Books Publishing, 2002. Nelson, Ph.D., Eric D. and Susan K. Allard-Neslson, Ph.D. Ancient Greece; New York, NY: Alpha Book Publishing, 2004. Ryan, Ph.D., Donald. Ancient Egypt. Indianapolis: Alpha Books Publishing, 2002.