Mark Gagnon

Even Roman writers who disliked her, like Cicero, admitted that she was really intelligent and really well educated.

So this seductive beauty thing is largely just a propaganda campaign by Octavian meant to hide the fact that Roman generals willingly allied with this powerful foreign queen.

Now, in 32 BC, war between Octavian and the Antony-Cleopatra alliance was basically inevitable, right?

So what does Octavian do?

Time to go to war.

But in this wild way, he only declares war on Cleopatra, not on Mark Antony.

Now, this allows him to present the conflict as Rome defending itself against this foreign outsider and this aggressive power and not a actual Roman civil war.

Now, this battle occurs on September 2nd, 31 BC at Actium off the coast of Greece.

Now, this is where things get super complicated because no one

actually knows what happened, okay?

There's a few different stories.

The traditional one is that Cleopatra suddenly fled in the middle of battle, and Antony abandoned his own fleet to follow her, and Octavian won a decisive victory without either of them at the helm of their armies.

But modern historians are actually skeptical of this version, which again, comes mainly from Octavian and his own propaganda.

Other theories suggest that Antony and Cleopatra realized that they are outnumbered and that they're going to lose the battle and decide to basically retreat in order to fight another day.

Or that Antony and Cleopatra just lose the battle outright, but it was actually much closer than Octavian's writers claimed.

Now, what's certain is that after Actium, Antony and Cleopatra retreat to Egypt while Octavian prepares a final invasion.

So nearly after a year after the Battle of Actium, Cleopatra and Antony remain in Alexandria, basically regrouping and attempt to negotiate peace or peace.

form a final battle or final moment of resistance i mean cleopatra tries diplomacy and escape and ancient sources even claim that she debated destroying her own treasure rather than letting octavian have it but octavian being a you know proper uh war general and madman wants total victory he wants it all so he's already planning to march cleopatra through rome in chains

Then, August of 30 BC, Octavian's forces breach Alexandria's defenses.

Mark Antony, believing that Cleopatra has already committed s**t, takes his own life with his sword.