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ACTIUM - Revision
Sources for Actium
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Virgil Aeneid 8.626-731
o Written to praise Augustus so will portray Actium as Augustus wants. Contemporary source.
Horace Epode 9
o Biased towards Augustus, contemporary source.
Horace Odes 1.37
o Biased towards Augustus, contemporary source.
Horace Odes 3.6
o Biased towards Augustus, contemporary source.
Propertius 4.6
o His patron was Maecenas, so was writing with bias to Augustus. Contemporary source.
Denarius 29-7 BC
o Contemporary source – but who minted it?
Denarius 27 BC
o Contemporary source – but who minted it?
Augustus Res Gestae 25
o A primary, accurate source biased towards Augustus – propaganda.
Virgil Aeneid 8.626-731
Virgil suggests that the battle of Actium is the very best moment in Rome’s history. He is describing
Aeneas’ shield on which are portrayed the scenes which are the most famous and most complimentary to
Rome: they are described as ‘the fortunes of Italy’ and ‘the Romans’ triumphs’.
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The story of Romulus and Remus: ‘a wolf... and twin boys’ – notice that the fratricide is omitted
‘the rape of the Sabine women’
‘war erupting between Romulus’ offspring/And aged Tatius and the austere people of Cures. Next,
the self-same kings/Had laid their quarrels aside’
‘here, flying through the gilded colonnades, a goose,/Of silver, sang out that the Gauls were at the
threshold’ – this passage is long and is given prominence as Rome seems great for fending off such
an invasion
‘sacred processions’ – Rome’s State Religion
‘Catiline, suspended/High on a menacing crag’ – the Underworld is explained by a historical story
rather than myth. Rome seems like a just place as the evil receive their due rewards
‘set apart, the righteous, with Cato lying down their laws’ – a Roman man is seen as the better man
for the job of judging the dead than Midas, who is generally used in mythology for this purpose
Actium is set apart from all of these scenes: ‘around it in silver, bright dolphins were churning the
waters/With tail-fins and cleaving a way through the surf’. Actium is also in the ‘centre’ of the shield, the
waves are ‘wrought in gold’ and the fleets are ‘wrought in bronze’. It is clear from the description that
Actium is, in Virgil’s opinion, the most important battle in Rome’s history and a moment to be proud of.
This importance is demonstrated further by Virgil saying that the gods were involved. The gods usually
only involved themselves in hugely important wars, e.g. the Trojan War. He says that Octavian was leading
the Romans with ‘the Penates/And the great gods’: these include ‘Neptune,/Minerva, and Venus’, ‘Mars
raged, and/From the skies the grim Furies, and Discord’, ‘Bellona/Followed, bloodily flailing’, ‘Actian Apollo
was drawing his bow’. ‘Barking Anubis’ was involved for the Egyptians – this god seems quite pathetic
compared to the Roman Pantheon as it is partly animal.
Virgil makes Actium seem like a foreign war. He does this by involving the Egyptian gods ‘barking Anubis’.
He does say that Antony was involved, but only that he ‘brought Egypt into the battle’ (Egypt is also
described as ‘the might of the Orient’ making the defeat seem like a huge success). Cleopatra seems
important and in control as she, ‘the queen summoned/Her squadrons with the Egyptian rattle’. She was
also ‘opening her sails’. ‘All,/Egyptian and Indian, Arab and Sabaean, were turning to flight.’ He also puts
down the Egyptians, saying that they had ‘barbarous arms and a motley array’. This emphasises Octavian’s
just cause for battle.
Octavian is also portrayed as the winner of Actium: ‘Augustus Caesar, leading the Italians/To battle
together with Senate and People’ – he seems in control of battle strategy. Furthermore, he is representing
the will of all the Romans and Italians. Therefore the battle is not seen as a civil war, and is against
Cleopatra and Egypt, not Antony. Virgil says ‘from his brow/Twin flames shot joyfully upward, and on his
helmet his father’s star appeared’ – it is made explicit that he is the son of a god and the portents make
him seem very important. Because of his victory, he received a ‘triple triumph’, emphasising just how great
a defeat Actium was.
Horace Epode 9
Horace begins his poem with the word ‘Maecenas’, making it clear that he is praising his patron and
therefore Octavian in this poem.
Like Virgil, he makes it clear that Octavian was the winner of Actium as he says he wants to celebrate ‘in
celebration of/Our Caesar’s victory’ – notice that he is called by his adoptive father’s name.
Horace presents Octavian’s enemy at Actium as very much Cleopatra and the Egyptians, not Antony, who
is not mentioned. Actium seems like a foreign war and not a civil war: ‘In service to a woman, Roman
soldiery/Bears stake and weapons, and can bring itself to yield obedience/To wrinkled eunuchs, while the
sun itself/Looks down upon that foul and curtained tent set up amidst/The standards of our Roman
legionaries’.
Horace even says that Octavian’s win at Actium surpassed victories of other generals, so was an important
and difficult battle: ‘Hail, Victory! Goddess, who never brought us home so great/A general from the
Jugurthine wars,/Not even Africanus, whose courage built for him a sepulchre upon/The ruins of a
conquered Carthage.’ – this is heavily biased as we know that Octavian did not even make the battle
strategy which caused the win at Actium – the work was mainly his general, Agrippa’s.
Horace, Odes 1.37
This source shows how Octavian wanted the Romans to view the battle of Actium as Horace’s patron was
Maecenas, a close friend of Augustus.
It appears that the battle of Actium ended dark times for Rome, since ‘it were sacrilege before to draw up
Caecuban/From ancestral cellars’. However, ‘now’s the time/To drink, to dance’ – therefore we can see
that Octavian’s defeat was a cause for celebration. It seemed to be a just and necessary battle, since
Cleopatra, ‘that queen/Was plotting demented ruin for the Capitol,/Planning our empire’s funeral rites’.
There is no mention of Antony, so it appears once again that Actium was a foreign war, not a civil war. The
Romans were on the righteous side, against the ‘contaminated crew of men’, the Egyptians.
Cleopatra is portrayed very negatively, as evil: ‘plotting demented ruin’; furthermore she does not seem to
be a very good queen, as Horace says that she is ‘drunk’ and ‘crazed on Mareotic wine’ – he wants to
portray that she was crazy to think that she had a chance of winning the battle. He likens to ‘gentle doves’
or a ‘hare’, suggesting that she is very defenceless, compared to Octavian, the ‘hawk’ or ‘hunter’ chasing
after her. She is also called a ‘doom-laden monster’. However, Horace does give her kudos because she
chose ‘a nobler death’ and ‘did not in woman’s fashion/Tremble at the sword’ or make for ‘safety’. Instead,
she ‘bravely grasped/Savage serpents’ with a ‘serene’ face.
The battle of Actium seems to be a very one-sided battle, since Horace says ‘scarcely one ship survived the
fire’. Horace portrays the battle strategy as Octavian’s, saying that ‘Caesar/Pursued her’, using the name of
his adoptive father and demonstrating his position as the son of a god. He is also described as a ‘hawk’, so
he seems to have been in control even though the strategy was that of his general, Agrippa.
Horace, Odes 3.6
This source portrays what Horace thought was wrong with Rome before Actium and that the result was the
near destruction of Rome. He does not think that Rome is as good as it used to be; this is part of Octavian’s
slogan for his new constitution, bringing back the good old ways of the Republic.
Horace claims that the Romans have not been honouring the gods properly, as currently there are
‘crumbling shrines’ and ‘images with black smoke besmirched’. As a result, because they have been
‘neglected, the gods have visited many/Woes upon grief-stricken Italy’. ‘Twice’ have the Romans been
defeated in Parthia, and have lost their ‘booty’ to them, because their ‘onslaughts’ were ‘unhallowed’ and
not blessed by the gods; one of these was Antony and because of this he went to Cleopatra in Egypt.
Horace also claims that Rome was ‘almost... destroyed’ by ‘Dacian and Ethiopian’ because it was
‘preoccupied with civil strife’. This is the direct reference to Actium.
Horace also discusses other problems with Rome: the women are all concerned with ‘unchaste love’ and
are ‘adulterers’, even going as far to sell their ‘shame’ to wealthy men, with their husbands’ knowledge.
The great Romans who defeated Carthage in the Punic Wars and ‘stained the sea with Punic blood,/Smote
Pyrrhus, mighty Antiochus/And dread Hannibal’ were ‘manly offspring of a rustic stock’ and Horace implies
that men of his time are not like these men of the virtuous golden age. In his times he believes that people
are of ‘rotten stock’ and that ‘more prone to vice will be our heirs’ because each generation is ‘more
degenerate than their sires’.
The message of Ode 3.6 is therefore that the Romans should honour their gods and return to the good old
ways to prevent Rome’s ultimate destruction, which has almost happened at Actium and at the hands of
the Parthians. Although Octavian is not mentioned, his great aim was to restore the greatness of the
Republic and simultaneously rid Rome of its corruption that occurred in the late Republic.
Propertius 4.6
Propertius here is writing about Actian Apollo – the aspect of Apollo that helped Augustus win at Actium.
After the battle, Augustus built a temple to him on the Palatine hill, next to Augustus’ house, because of
the help that he had given at Actium.
Propertius makes this temple appear extremely holy by using a lot of religious vocabulary in succession, in
preparation for the sacrifice that is about to happen there. He says that there is ‘holy silence’, a ‘sacred
hearth’, ‘ivy-wreaths’, ‘libation’.
Propertius says that he is going to sing about Octavian ‘Caesar’ and calls upon the help of the ‘Muse’ to
help him do so; he says ‘my tale is worthy of your favour’ to Calliope, ‘Queen of the Muses’, and she is the
Muse of epic poetry. He also asks ‘Great Jupiter’ to ‘pause briefly now and hearken to my tale’: even the
king of the gods should listen to the story of Octavian. Propertius really builds up the story as extremely
significant.
Propertius describes the battle of Actium itself as a very major battle: ‘Vast upon the sea’ and involving ‘all
the armies of the world’, the ‘waters trembled, lit by the flashes of bright armaments’.
Cleopatra once again seems responsible and there is no mention of Antony at all: ‘To one side was the
fleet which Trojan Quirinus doomed, disgraced/By the woman who brandished Roman spears’. She is also
called an ‘alien queen’ and seems foolish for ‘putting her faith too blindly in her fleeing craft’ – she seems
very cowardly here, and her one redeeming feature is that ‘she did not die/When Fate decreed’.
The gods also appear to be on the Romans’ side once again, as ‘Augustus’ flagship swelled its sails with
Jove’s omens on its side’, and Apollo ‘stood above Augustus’ ship, his hair bound up not loose’ (so ready
for battle) and says himself ‘My bow fights for you’ and that he is ‘helmsman/To Caesar’s Julian ships’.
Propertius also compares Apollo’s involvement in the battle of Actium as in the Trojan War ‘he glared as
once he glowered on Agamemnon... with his plague he carried off the Greeks’. The Egyptian gods seem
incomparably weak and irrelevant when put next to the Roman gods: they gods are ‘demons but painted
terrors’. Apollo also says that the Egyptians ‘have no welcome from the seas they sail’. Even Caesar
appears in this poem, saying “I am a god” and he says that he can “see/Proof that he is my offspring,
sprung from my blood.” – so elevating Octavian and subtly reinforcing his position as ‘divi filius’.
Denarius 29-7 BC
This coin displays a picture of Victory, standing right, on a prow, holding a wreath and palm.
The prow represents a ship  Actium.
On the reverse is Octavian standing in an ornamented quadriga, holding a branch, with the inscription ‘IMP
CAESAR’ (Imperator Caesar).
The quadriga means that Octavian is in a triumph, only given for the greatest generals and the best battles;
so Actium and Octavian therefore appear huge and excellent. Octavian is also holding a victory branch, and
possibly has a wreath on his head, but we cannot quite see.
Denarius 27 BC
This coin shows Augustus with his head bare and facing the right, with the inscription ‘CAESAR DIVI F COS
VII’ (Caesar, son of the deified, Consul for the seventh time).
Since his head is bare, it appears that he is showing off, but the inscription relays his amazing achievements
and ensures that people know he is the son of a god.
On the reverse is a picture of a crocodile, with the inscription ‘AEGVPTO CAPTA’ (Egypt captured).
The crocodile was the symbol of Egypt as this is where they were mainly found. Crocodiles were fearsome
and deadly, so we can infer that Egypt was perceived in this way also, proving that Octavian was very brave
for fighting them (and very skilled for winning). It ensures that people think that Actium was a foreign
battle and not a civil war.
Augustus Res Gestae 25
In this source Augustus portrays the battle of Actium as the culmination of ‘the war in which I was
victorious at Actium’.
He also portrays it as a united effort from Italy and all of Rome’s provinces, as Italy helped ‘of its own
accord’. He thus portrays himself as acting on behalf of the people.
He also claims that he was supported by prominent religious and political figures in Rome: ‘more than 700
senators served... including eighty-three who previously or subsequently... were appointed consul, and one
hundred and seventy who were appointed priests’.