Customer Reviews

Actium 31 BC: Downfall of Antony and Cleopatra (Campaign)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The final show-down between the forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra against Octavian at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC marked not only the end of the final spasms of the Roman Republic, but also one of the most interesting phases of Ancient military history. Professor Si Sheppard, who did the earlier volumes on Pharsalus and Philippi, completes his trilogy on the fall of the Roman Republic in Actium 31 BC. Overall, the author demonstrates a very good grasp of this subject and some very insightful analysis, although the delivery is a bit strained until he actually gets to the battle itself. Some readers may also be put off that less than half the volume covers the actual Actium campaign. Nevertheless, Professor Sheppard's work is illuminating and useful for scholars of the Roman world, particularly naval developments.

The volume begins with an unusual 30-page introduction (nearly one-third of the entire volume), which describes events in the Roman World from the Pact of Brundisium in 40 BC up to the end of the Triumvirate less than a decade later. The author spends nearly ten pages detailing Octavian's campaign against Sextus Pompey in Sicily, which quite frankly, was a bore. Although this earlier campaign reveals some insightful material about the relationship between Octavian and his naval commander Agrippa, as well as Octavian's general inability to act as a field commander, it could have been done in much less space. Several more pages are spent discussing Octavian's follow-up campaign into Illyria, to even less purpose. Mark Antony doesn't make much of an appearance until page 19, where the author then details his Parthian campaign (much better than the section on Sextus). The author then makes some good points about the collapse of the triumvirate, between Antony's mistake in sharing his victory with Egypt and Octavian's extra-legal assumption of authority

The section on opposing commanders discusses Octavian, Agrippa, Mark Antony and Cleopatra. This section is adequate, but could have made some effort to discuss some of the actual subordinate commanders who actually fought the battle, rather than spectators like Cleopatra. Unlike most books in the Campaign Series, there is no section on opposing plans. Instead, the author imbeds this information in the campaign narrative. The section on opposing armies (fleets) is ten pages long but actually provides very little information about the actual forces at Actium. Instead, the author delivers a long-winded essay on naval tactics, logistics and missile weapons. To be fair, the author makes some very important points here about the instability of Roman warships and the reliance on ramming and boarding tactics, but much of it appears better suited to a New Vanguard title rather than a campaign title.

The actual campaign narrative is about 32 pages long, which translates to 21 pages of text. Most of the missing opposing plans, subordinate commanders and order of battle information appears in this section, but serve to reduce the space on the actual battle. The author's battle narrative uses the existing ancient literary sources to maximum extent to produce a decent summary of Actium. Both the maps and the text work together to reveal the course of battle and readers should have no complaints there. Unfortunately, the author makes no mention of underwater archaeological surveys made in the 1990s that could have added to his discussion of how the battle unfolded. The final 7-page section covers the collapse of Antony's house of cards after defeat at Actium and the suicides of Antony and Cleopatra. Overall, Actium 31 BC starts out a bit slow and it is nearly half-finished before readers reach the actual clash between Octavian and Antony. However, the author warms up once the campaign begins and his discussion of the Actium campaign is quite good.

Actium 31 BC has five 2-D Maps (the Roman World from 40 BC to 30 BC; the Sicilian theater of operations, 36 BC; the Illyrian theater of operations, 35-34 BC; Antony's campaign against Parthia, 36 BC; the Balkans during the Actium campaign, 31 BC) and two 3-D BEV (Actium, morning and afternoon) maps. The maps are not bad, particularly the BEVs, but only 3 of 7 actually relate to the Actium campaign. The three battle scenes by Christa Hook (Antony's retreat from Media Atropatene, 37 BC; a ballista crew aboard one of Octavian's galleys at Actium; Cleopatra's squadron breaks out at Actium) are crudely done - something I would expect from a talented twelve-year old with crayons, actually. Indeed, this is some of the weakest artwork that I have seen in an Osprey campaign volume for some time and it probably would have been better to re-use some of the artwork from the New Vanguard, Elite or MAA series. The author has also included a bibliography and brief notes on the site today.

Professor Si sheppard's third installment that analyses three main engagements (Pharsalus, Philippi and Actium) of the long period of Roman civil wars, reveals to the reader the ending of the Roman Republic and the rise of the principate.

This title is very worthy, detailing the process that lead to the naval battle of Actium; including the campaigns of Octavius and Agrippa against Sextus Pompeus, the Dalmatian campaigns, the campaign of Anthony against parthia and the events that initiated the campaign. Since the beginning of those events it is quite clear that Anthony had difficulty retaining the loyalty of his allies.

Also detailed are the characteristics of naval weapon systems, tactics and navegability of Roman ships. As usual, a short summary of the commanders is also provided.

All this gives a good background to the reader, but is also a severe handicap in the book. With so much space providing background, the amount of material of the campaign and battle in itself is severily limited! This book would be more adequate as an "essential histories" title.

The birds eye views are great, the photographs are very good and in the right places. The art of Christa Hook is substantially different than most Osprey titles, but it's quite dramatic. I like a lot the paintings of "Cleopatra's Squadron breaks out of the mêlee at Actium" and the "Antony's Retreat from Media Atropatene"; they reveal good insight on how the events probably happened (the other paintings, in my humble opinion, are clearly inferior).

The author managed to not only describe accurately the campaig for the newbie, but also provide food for thought for the enthusiast or the expert. From the possibility that the battle was indeed an escape attempt, to the limited option's left to Anthony in the Balkans.

Valuable title, Professor Si Sheppard MUST continue to write about the subject.

I found Si Sheppard's Actium 31 BC to be a very good account of the story of decline and fall of Mark Antony. The book basically centered around Antony as it discussed his campaign against the Parthians that ended up in defeat and his relationship with Cleopatra that compromised him in the eyes of his fellow Romans, especially those in Rome itself. His relationship with Cleopatra gave his enemies in Rome the opening they needed to destroy him.

To be fair. the book does covered other parts of this great Roman Civil War, especially the wars fought between Octavian and Sextus Pompey. But the heart and soul of this book lies with Mark Antony and his failures, both as a commander and as man. I also found the section on "Opposing Armies" to be interesting as the book talks about the various naval implements and ships. Maybe this section should have been title "Opposing Navies".

But the book make it clear that Actium really wasn't a battle at all but an escape plan for Antony and Cleopatra after the campaign against Octavian went totally awry. A mistake in the author's view who thought Antony could have fought it out on the ground since that was Antony's greatest asset as a commander and men in his army still had faith in him.

I found the maps to be quite good, photographs to be helpful and illustrations by Christa Hook to be insightful. Anyone who have a good causal interest in the dying era of the Roman Republic should take a good look at this book.

Only about a third of this book's length is dedicated to the Battle of Actium per se. The book is, instead, more about the overall struggle between Mark Antony and Octavio on the strategic level, both in terms of military strategy and, just as important, in terms of the political struggle. This is not a surprise as the author, a Professor of Political Science and Geopolitics has an excellent in-depth knowledge of the times and the references from antiquity relevant to this period.
The book starts off by presenting the strengths and weaknesses of each side. This was primarily that Octavian faced serious financial problems, primarily in regard to financing his legions. In addition, he had to contend with fighting forces opposed to him in Sicily. Antony, on the other hand, had a much better financial situation to work with (the East was wealthier than the West - a factor that later allowed the "later" Roman Empire [referred to as the Byzantine State] to live on after Rome collapsed) and he did not face open opposition to the extent that Octavian did in the West. This is not to say that he did not have military problems. He attempted to conquer Parthia, primarily to obtain legitimacy over Octavio in Rome (he was claiming this struggle as a means of expanding Rome's authority), but was defeated. The book correctly points out that Antony's financial situation and more consolidated political situation, vis-à-vis that of Octavian, dictated that he play a long term strategy of holding out for as much time as possible. Time was on his side. This was also Cleopatra's recommended strategy. Yet Antony rashly launched into the offensive instead of playing the waiting game. This, combined with his too close relationship to Cleopatra, one that undermined his legitimacy in Rome and enabled Octavian to unify Rome under his leadership, is what really led to his defeat. Actium was only a tactical after thought. Antony was defeated strategically even before this thanks to his lack of strategic vision relative to Octavian.

With respect to the battle itself, the book provides an excellent description of it as well as setting up a brief analysis as to why the battle was basically lost before it was even thought. There were two reasons for this. One was that Antony's army and navy personnel were already severely depleted before this battle even started. The topology of Actium was very swamp like and this lead to disease devastating his army and navy. There were not enough men to even man most of Antony's ships by the time of the battle for example. A weakness of the book is that it does not explain why Antony chose this spot to form his troops up at and why he did not make a move out before his army deteriorated to the extent that it did. Considering the fact that Antony was a first rate commander this is most perplexing. Unfortunately the book does not elaborate on this issue.

The book's description of the battle, along with accompanying maps, is excellent. It describes well the naval battle which was more an attempted breakout by Antony and Cleopatra than an actual attempt to defeat Octavian's navy. As stated previously, however, this is no surprise as the battle was more or less won by Octavian before it was even fought. The results of the battle are also well discussed. Basically that Antony, by fleeing with Cleopatra to Egypt and abandoning his army to its fate, not only lost his army at Actium but armies in Northern Greece and Macedonia (they turned to Octavian after hearing of Antony's betrayal). Antony's closer symbiosis to Cleopatra also enabled Octavian to further consolidate his position by claiming he truly represented Rome while Anthony, on the other hand, was a traitor and under the spell of Cleopatra. The book concludes with Octavian taking the battle home to Anthony and Cleopatra and defeating them in Egypt.

All and all an excellent introduction to the conflict despite the book's very short length (96 pages of which a third consist of excellent illustrations). Even though this book can be read in only about an hour it provides an introduction worthy of a much lengthier book.