Octavian vs Mark Antony: The Seized Will, Agrippa's Blockade and Actium

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When Julius Caesar was murdered in 44 BC, his 18-year-old adopted son Octavian inherited his fortune, his name and a target on his back. Mark Antony, Caesar's master of the horse, held the loyalty of the veterans, so Octavian sold his own estates to pay the bonuses Caesar had promised. The two formed the Second Triumvirate with Lepidus to hunt down Brutus and Cassius, renewed it at Tarentum in 37 BC, and sealed it with Antony's marriage to Octavian's sister Octavia. Then Antony moved to Alexandria with Cleopatra and, in the Donations of Alexandria, proclaimed the 13-year-old Caesarion King of Kings.

Octavian struck back with coins and rumor, then read aloud Antony's will, seized from the Vestal Virgins after Lucius Munatius Plancus defected. Rome declared war on Cleopatra, not Antony. In 31 BC Marcus Agrippa cut Antony's grain routes by taking ports such as Methone, and malaria and desertion gutted Antony's camp at Actium. On 2 September 31 BC Agrippa's nimble Liburnians kept clear of Antony's undermanned quinqueremes, Cleopatra's 60 ships broke through and fled, and Antony followed, leaving his fleet and legions to surrender.

• Reading a living man's will broke Roman religious and legal norms, but its contents silenced objections.
• Scholar J.M. Carter argues Antony deliberately opened the center so Cleopatra and the war chest could escape.
• Antony fell on his sword after a false report of Cleopatra's death, and she took her own life rather than walk in Octavian's triumph.
• Octavian executed Caesarion and Antony's eldest son Antyllus, yet gave Antony and Cleopatra an honorable public funeral.
• He founded Nicopolis near Actium, mounted Antony's bronze rams on a monument, and became Augustus in 27 BC.