Sextus Pompeius and the Sicilian War (42 to 36 B.C.E.)
Historia Civilis
0:02 The defeat of Brutus and Cassius at the Battle of Philippi
0:06 meant that the last of Julius Caesar's assassins were dead.
0:11 Within the Roman state,
0:12 unrestricted political power now flowed down to Caesar's 3 political successors.
0:18 The so-called Second Triumvirate.
0:19 His adopted son Octavian, co-consul at the time of his death Antony,
0:24 and his second-in-command at the time of his death Lepidus.
0:28 Octavian and Antony were still in Greece, fresh from their victory at Philippi,
0:32 while Lepidus was holding things down in the capital.
0:35 In the immediate aftermath of Philippi,
0:38 Octavian behaved with remarkable and unnecessary cruelty.
0:41 He amused his soldiers by torturing prisoners,
0:45 including many famous senators and aristocrats from back home.
0:49 At one point he put on a big production where he forced
0:53 fathers and sons to draw straws to see which one would be executed.
0:57 One well known politician begged Octavian to at least send his body
1:01 back to Rome so that his family could have a proper funeral.
1:06 Octavian replied coldly, "the birds will see to your funeral." Real sicko stuff.
1:18 In the days and weeks that followed,
1:20 Octavian and Antony met in private to discuss
1:23 the new political situation that they found themselves in.
1:26 The Battle of Philippi had been (perhaps) the largest battle in Roman history,
1:31 and in order to field such a massive army, Octavian and Antony had made equally
1:37 massive promises to their soldiers and supporters.
1:40 For instance, now that the battle was won they
1:43 owed every soldier something like 22 years of back pay.
1:47 An absurd sum of money,
1:49 especially at a time when the Roman treasury was empty from years of civil war.
1:55 As their discussions progressed, one name kept on coming up.
1:59 Lepidus.
2:00 It turns out that neither of them really trusted Lepidus.
2:04 Apparently there were rumours at the time that he was
2:07 at the center of some kind of conspiracy back in Rome.
2:11 We don't have enough information to evaluate
2:13 whether or not these rumours were true,
2:15 but the important thing is that Octavian and Antony found them troubling.
2:19 There in Greece, the victors of Philippi agreed to turn on their ally.
2:26 They got out a map and split Lepidus's possessions among themselves.
2:31 Under this new agreement, Antony, as the senior partner,
2:34 would oversee Transalpine Gaul and much of the Roman east.
2:38 Octavian, as the junior partner, would oversee Spain.
2:42 Lepidus would formally remain their ally, but in a much reduced state,
2:47 confined to the Roman province of Africa.
2:50 Italy would remain neutral ground.
2:53 As part of this rearrangement,
2:54 they agreed to formally incorporate Cisalpine Gaul into Italy,
2:58 which had long been a dream of Caesar's before his death.
3:03 With a deal struck, Octavian and Antony parted ways.
3:07 Octavian would return to Rome and begin the slow
3:11 and difficult process of paying out Rome's veterans.
3:14 Antony would head east and begin
3:18 a reorganization of Rome's long-neglected eastern provinces.
3:21 From this point forward, Octavian and Antony's paths radically diverged.
3:26 They would see each other a handful of times over the coming decade,
3:29 but for the most part, each was off in their own little world,
3:34 dealing with their own unique crises and having
3:37 virtually nothing to do with each other.
3:39 Today, we're going to focus our attention on Octavian and follow his path.
3:44 Next time, we'll follow Antony's.
3:53 Octavian returned to Rome,
3:54 where he was immediately tasked with the truly thankless
3:57 job of finding back pay for some 50,000 retiring soldiers.
4:03 Italy was already suffering under an economic depression,
4:07 and the Roman treasury was empty.
4:09 Recall that Octavian and Antony had paid for the war by forcing
4:14 Italian farmers to send half of their harvest to the Roman state.
4:18 With no available money and no easy solutions,
4:22 Octavian leaned into his autocratic instincts and began
4:26 to simply confiscate farmland and redistribute it to retiring soldiers.
4:32 Farmers were not compensated for their this, it was little more than theft.
4:37 Of course, special exemptions and carve-outs were created
4:41 for friendly Senators and rich landowners, because of course.
4:46 This meant that the sudden seizure
4:49 of property fell disproportionately on the poor,
4:51 tens of thousands of whom were suddenly made homeless and destitute.
4:57 The Romans had this romanticized notion of themselves
5:00 that said that good soldiers made good farmers, which of course is nonsense.
5:06 Farmers actually had to work every day!
5:08 And so when retiring soldiers were dropped
5:10 onto a farm expecting a relaxing retirement,
5:13 the high workload gave them a nasty shock.
5:16 That year, Italy suffered an unusually high rate of crop failures,
5:21 mostly due to inexperience.
5:23 The price of food went through the roof,
5:26 and the poorest citizens began to starve.
5:29 Italy began to suffer under a famine.
5:32 Most displaced farmers moved to big cities where they struggled.
5:37 Many never made it off the streets.
5:39 A minority became fully radicalized by the seizure of their farms.
5:45 Banditry became a problem everywhere, all at once,
5:48 mostly because of ex-farmers who had nothing left to lose.
5:52 It became so bad that armies of bandits actually
5:56 got together and attacked small cities and seized their granaries,
6:01 which in turn triggered mass starvation.
6:05 This whole situation enraged the people.
6:08 None of this was an act of nature, none of it had to happen.
6:12 Bad politics and bad politicians were to blame.
6:17 Octavian and Antony had never been particularly popular,
6:20 but now, they were despised.
6:23 Through their meddling,
6:25 the life of the average Roman citizen had become objectively worse.
6:34 Who would defend the interests of the poor Italian farmers?
6:38 Oh, nobody?
6:40 Okay.
6:41 Who would *PRETEND* to defend the interests of the poor
6:44 Italian farmers in order to cynically further their own political career?
6:49 Lucius Antonius, brother of Mark Antony?
6:52 Okay, cool.
6:54 Lucius Antonius had been elected consul for the year of 41 B.C.E.,
6:58 probably with his brother's help.
7:00 As the political winds began to shift,
7:03 Lucius abruptly turned against Octavian and took
7:06 up the cause of the Italian farmers.
7:08 He called 8 friendly legions down from the north
7:14 and marched on Rome, occupying the city.
7:18 We don't know much about this occupation, but we do know that it was brief.
7:22 As Octavian began raising legions to the south,
7:25 it quickly became clear that Lucius would not be able to hold the city.
7:30 He marched north to meet up
7:32 with some of Antony's generals from Transalpine Gaul.
7:35 Lucius assumed that the generals were coming south to lend a hand,
7:39 but he was mistaken.
7:40 Instead, they had one simple question for him.
7:44 Was he acting on his own behalf, or was he acting on behalf of his brother?
7:49 Was Lucius off on his own freelancing,
7:52 or was this the first salvo in another civil war?
7:56 Lucius was evasive, and refused to give the generals a straight answer.
8:00 More than 2,000 years later, we still don't know the answer to this question.
8:07 Antony would later deny any knowledge of the whole affair,
8:10 but...he would say that, wouldn't he?
8:13 I suspect that there may have been a secret agreement between the two brothers,
8:17 and I'll tell you why.
8:19 Because Antony's wife Fulvia was in on it.
8:22 She personally raised legions of her own
8:26 and marched north at her brother-in-law's side.
8:30 Who's that?
8:34 Enter Marcus Agrippa.
8:37 Octavian and Agrippa had been close friends since childhood,
8:39 and when Octavian came to power,
8:41 he made a point of bringing Agrippa along as an aide on all of his campaigns.
8:46 In many ways the two were opposites, which may be while they got along so well.
8:51 Agrippa was an emotional man of action,
8:54 whereas Octavian was slow and methodical and calm, freakishly calm.
8:58 Agrippa was strong and active,
9:00 whereas Octavian was physically small and weak and perpetually sick.
9:05 Agrippa aspired to be a great military leader, whereas Octavian did not,
9:10 and seemed bored and disengaged by all things military in nature.
9:15 The two were an unlikely pair,
9:17 but their bond was strong, and their skills complimented each other.
9:22 Octavian put Agrippa in charge of his legions and sent him north.
9:27 Empowering Agrippa was the smartest thing he could have done,
9:29 because in no time at all Lucius had been
9:32 outmanoeuvred and trapped in the fortified town of Perusia.
9:36 Fulvia and others marched to his aid,
9:39 but Agrippa intercepted them early and pushed them back.
9:42 Over the winter months, Agrippa besieged the town.
9:46 Lucius tried to break out several times, but every attempt failed.
9:51 He constantly talked about his brother,
9:53 and held out hope that Antony was on his way with an army from the east.
9:59 But Antony never came.
10:01 After months trapped inside the town, Lucius and friends negotiated a surrender.
10:07 As part of this deal, Lucius and Fulvia would be allowed to go free.
10:13 Fulvia fled east to be with her husband, and Lucius, believe it or not,
10:17 was allowed to continue his political career and would
10:20 go on to serve as governor in Spain.
10:23 The town of Perusia, on the other hand,
10:26 for the grave crime of being occupied against their will,
10:30 would be looted and burned for harbouring traitors.
10:34 You can begin to see why Octavian
10:38 and friends were so unpopular with the Roman people!
10:42 According to some sources, Octavian ordered all high ranking prisoners that were
10:47 not protected by the peace deal back to Rome.
10:50 He took these prisoners- some 300 senators and aristocrats-
10:54 to the brand new temple of Julius Caesar, which was still under construction.
10:59 There, he had them put to death.
11:02 I don't want to over-state things,
11:04 but if you go by the way it's described in the sources,
11:07 this was a human sacrifice in all but name.
11:10 They didn't have to die,
11:11 and they certainly didn't have to die in Caesar's temple, but Octavian insisted.
11:16 What a sick man.
11:24 Octavian and Agrippa were growing increasingly
11:26 uncomfortable with their political arrangement with Antony.
11:30 The thing with Lucius was a close call,
11:32 if he had been able to win the support of Antony's
11:35 generals from Gaul the whole thing might have gone down differently.
11:40 In 40 B.C.E., one of these generals died unexpectedly.
11:44 Octavian and Agrippa saw this as an opening,
11:47 and seized control of the dead man's 11 legions in Gaul.
11:52 This was an act of aggression,
11:54 and it was in open breach of the agreement with Antony.
11:58 Antony dropped everything and immediately started making his way back to Italy,
12:02 escorted by a massive fleet of ships.
12:05 But when he arrived at the port city of Brundisium,
12:08 there were a series of misunderstandings.
12:10 The locals saw Antony's fleet and closed
12:13 off their harbour and prepared for battle.
12:16 Antony interpreted this as an act of war, and ordered a blockade of the port.
12:21 When Octavian learned of the standoff at Brundisium,
12:23 he personally went down there to try to work something out.
12:28 As messages started going back and forth between the two camps,
12:31 it quickly became clear that nobody wanted this fight.
12:35 This was especially true of the rank-and-file soldiers,
12:38 who were only a couple of years removed
12:41 from the last civil war against Brutus and Cassius.
12:45 There was some indication that if
12:47 violence broke out between Octavian and Antony,
12:50 many on both sides would simply refuse to fight.
12:55 The two sides began formal negotiations to see if
12:57 they could come to a more stable and long-lasting arrangement.
13:02 This would become known as the Treaty of Brundisium.
13:11 They agreed to re-split the Roman world.
13:14 Broadly speaking, Octavian would take the west, and Antony would take the east.
13:19 Lepidus would remain a minor third partner,
13:21 and would retain control of the province of Africa.
13:25 Italy would remain neutral ground.
13:27 This time, the two made sure that there
13:30 was very little overlap in their areas of control,
13:32 and promised to stay out of each other's way going forward.
13:37 It may seem that Octavian got the better part of this deal, and he kinda did,
13:41 but don't forget how powerful and rich
13:44 the Roman east was compared to the Roman west.
13:47 Antony was still in the stronger position, and was growing richer by the day.
13:52 Stability was in his interest,
13:54 and if Gaul kept Octavian happy that was perfectly fine.
13:59 Antony agreed to cement the alliance by marrying Octavian's sister Octavia.
14:05 Antony's wife Fulvia had died suddenly shortly after
14:07 she went east to meet up with him.
14:09 The ancient sources say that she died of natural causes,
14:13 and I almost believe them.
14:15 With the Treaty of Brundisium out of the way,
14:18 Octavian turned his attention to to an ongoing
14:21 crisis just off the coast of Italy.
14:24 The crisis had a name.
14:26 Sextus Pompeius, Boat King, Pirate King, son of Pompey Magnus,
14:30 beloved of Neptune god of the sea, at least according to him.
14:35 Sextus had suffered defeat in Spain at the hands of Caesar years earlier,
14:38 but he'd been a busy beaver in the years since.
14:40 Sextus blew through the Mediterranean like a hurricane.
14:43 He captured the Roman province of Sicily,
14:45 which he transformed into his base of operations.
14:49 Around this time he also began to wear a unique blue
14:52 cloak and associate himself with the Roman god of the sea.
14:56 He then launched attacks against the islands of Corsica and Sardinia.
15:01 Sextus hoped that soon he would grow
15:04 strong enough to threaten Spain and north Africa.
15:07 Octavian perhaps didn't fully appreciate this threat in the beginning,
15:11 but recently things had really started to get ugly.
15:13 Recall that Octavian's poor economic policies had
15:17 already caused farm yields across Italy to plummet.
15:20 On top of that, consider that Sicily kinda served Rome's breadbasket,
15:25 a major producer of food for the capital, but now that was cut off.
15:30 More expensive food began to be shipped in from the all corners of the Empire,
15:34 but Sextus used his strong position in the dead
15:38 centre of the Mediterranean to systematically target Rome's shipping lanes.
15:42 Italy was already struggling under a famine, and this made it way worse.
15:48 Shortly before the Treaty of Brundisium,
15:50 during a moment of high tension with Antony,
15:53 Octavian married a distant relation of Sextus named Scribonia
15:57 in an effort to maybe set up a future alliance.
16:01 The marriage was an unhappy one,
16:03 and after the agreement was reached with Antony, it became unnecessary.
16:08 On the day that their first and only daughter was born,
16:16 the couple sought a divorce.
16:19 As the famine on the mainland grew worse, the people turned on Octavian.
16:24 They recognized the powerful symbolism of the son
16:27 of Caesar taking on the son of Pompey, but they didn't think it was cute.
16:32 This wasn't a game, people's lives were being destroyed.
16:36 Rome had a policy of handing out free food to its poorest citizens,
16:41 but the granaries were empty, they couldn't keep up with demand,
16:44 people were literally starving in the streets.
16:47 Ever since Caesar crossed the Rubicon 10 years ago,
16:51 Rome had entered into a death spiral
16:53 of civil war after civil war after civil war.
16:57 People could barely even remember why they were fighting anymore,
17:00 and they blamed the pride and the vanity
17:03 of their leaders for taking them down this path.
17:07 This is why, as the situation with Sextus began to heat up,
17:11 Octavian got ambushed by an angry mob on his way back from the Forum.
17:15 He escaped with his life, but not before a large number of Roman
17:19 civilians were killed at the hands of his soldiers.
17:21 As you can imagine, this did nothing to help his popularity.
17:30 Octavian could see that with domestic unrest, he was holding a weak hand.
17:35 He approached Sextus's mother, who was still in Rome,
17:38 and told her that he would be open to negotiations with her son.
17:43 Sextus agreed to a meeting.
17:44 Octavian invited Antony back from the east,
17:46 and all three of them met near the coastal city of Misenum.
17:50 Remember, Sextus's father Pompey had been murdered when
17:54 he went ashore to negotiate with the Egyptians.
17:57 Sextus didn't want to give his enemies the same oppor-tuna-ty,
18:01 and so he insisted that two large wooden platform were built out in the sea,
18:06 some distance from the coast.
18:08 Sextus and his advisors stood on the platform furthest out to sea,
18:12 within visual range of his fleet.
18:15 Octavian, Antony, and their advisors stood on the platform nearest the coast.
18:19 They were quite a distance apart, each side had to shout to be heard.
18:24 Despite the awkward setup, negotiations were successful.
18:28 Octavian and Antony agreed to officially install Sextus as the governor
18:32 of all of the territory that he had captured so far, plus southern Greece.
18:38 They also agreed to let him run for consul for the following year.
18:42 In return, Sextus agreed to open the shipping lanes,
18:45 easing the famine and allowing grain to flow freely into Rome once more.
18:56 The agreement with Sextus sent a strong signal to the Roman world.
19:01 Octavian and Antony were not seeking another civil war.
19:05 There would be no further recriminations.
19:08 Any senators or politicians who had found themselves on the wrong side
19:11 of any of the last several civil wars were free to return to Rome.
19:18 This was great news for a man who had
19:20 been on the wrong side of several civil wars lately, Tiberius Claudius Nero.
19:25 He had started his career by taking
19:28 a highly principled stand against the First Triumvirate,
19:31 the alliance between Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus.
19:34 When Caesar crossed the Rubicon,
19:36 he abandoned those principles and became a loyal Caesarian.
19:39 When Caesar was assassinated,
19:41 he abandoned those principles and became a loyal follower of Caesar's assassins.
19:46 After their defeat at the Battle of Philippi,
19:49 he abandoned those principles and became a loyal follower of Antony.
19:53 After returning to Rome and being elected to office as one of Antony's men,
19:58 he abandoned those principles and joined up with Antony's brother
20:01 Lucius and his wife Fulvia when they rose up against Octavian.
20:05 Actually...that one's iffy.
20:08 After Lucius surrendered, Tiberius Claudius Nero tried to get
20:11 a pro-Antony slave revolt going in southern Italy,
20:15 which Antony immediately disavowed.
20:17 After his pro-Antony revolt failed,
20:19 he abandoned those principles and fled to Sicily,
20:22 where he became a loyal follower of Sextus.
20:25 In time it became clear that Sextus didn't want anything to do with him,
20:29 so he abandoned those principles and went to Greece to re-join Antony,
20:32 taking with him his pregnant wife and son.
20:35 Antony (inexplicably) welcomed him back,
20:37 but refused to entrust him with a real job,
20:41 and so he sent him to Sparta to oversee
20:44 some stuff that did not really require overseeing.
20:47 We don't know exactly what happened in Sparta, but it was something bad,
20:52 because Tiberius Claudius Nero was forced to flee in the middle
20:55 of the night with his pregnant wife and son into the woods.
20:59 During their flight, a random lightning strike ignited a forest fire,
21:03 and Tiberius Claudius Nero and his family were
21:06 cut off and eventually encircled by the blaze.
21:09 At one point the flames got so close that his wife's hair caught fire.
21:14 Against all odds, they survived the night
21:17 with nothing more than minor burns and singed clothing.
21:21 Tiberius Claudius Nero's wife went by the name of Livia,
21:24 and she would go on to become the first Empress of Rome.
21:29 Their son, who shared his father's name,
21:33 would later be known to history as the Emperor Tiberius.
21:38 And so it came as no surprise when Tiberius Claudius Nero abandoned
21:42 Antony and his principles by answering Octavian's call to return to Rome.
21:47 Clearly his career wasn't going as planned.
21:51 Octavian and Livia hit it off immediately at some social function.
21:55 He was impressed by her quick wit and intelligence,
21:58 and the fact that she seemingly could teach a master class on Roman politics.
22:03 This was a reputation that Livia would keep for her entire life, by the way.
22:07 In her old age she was lovingly described as "Ulysses
22:12 in a frock." She was also a member of the extended Claudii family,
22:17 which was without a doubt the most powerful family in Rome.
22:21 The Claudii were the most aristocratic of the aristocratic families,
22:25 with a proud political legacy that went all
22:28 the way back to the founding of the Republic, almost 500 years ago.
22:32 By my count there had been at least 25 Claudii consuls over the last 200 years.
22:39 The Claudii were so full of themselves that they
22:42 didn't even like their members associating with lesser families.
22:45 You might note that Tiberius Claudius Nero, Livia's husband, was also a Claudii.
22:52 Soon after their first meeting,
22:53 a plan was hatched for Livia to leave her current husband and marry Octavian.
22:59 Her current marriage was had been a political match anyways,
23:02 so everyone was fine with this.
23:04 In fact, Octavian would help advance Tiberius
23:07 Claudius Nero's career in the years to come.
23:10 Octavian and Livia consulted with some priests,
23:12 and decided to put a hold on things until still-pregnant Livia gave birth.
23:18 In the mean time, they moved in together.
23:20 Three days after the birth of her second son,
23:24 Livia divorced, and immediately remarried.
23:26 Livia was on her second marriage by the age of 20.
23:30 Octavian was 24, and on his third.
23:32 The Romans did things differently, man, what can I say?
23:36 Octavian's marriage to Livia coincided
23:38 with a period of peace within the Republic.
23:41 Antony went back east, Sextus was made governor,
23:46 and the famine within Italy began to subside.
23:50 But it was all a big lie.
23:56 Octavian had no intention of allowing Sextus
23:58 to serve as governor, let alone consul.
24:01 This whole thing was just a way to buy time.
24:05 With money finally trickling back into Rome,
24:07 Octavian committed all of it to a massive shipbuilding program.
24:12 For the time being nobody said why they were building ships, but everyone knew.
24:20 In 38 B.C.E., Octavian launched a surprise attack
24:23 against Sextus by throwing his entire fleet at Sicily.
24:27 It went badly, mostly due to bad weather, bad ship design,
24:31 badly trained sailors, and badly underestimating Boat King Sextus Pompeius.
24:36 Over half of Octavian's fleet was destroyed,
24:39 and the rest fled for their lives and scattered.
24:43 Octavian had taken Rome's limited wealth and bet it all on this surprise attack.
24:48 He lost, and now it was all gone.
24:52 When news broke of Octavian's defeat,
24:54 there were riots in the capital, and I don't blame them.
24:58 Sextus's blockade snapped back into place, and famine returned to Italy.
25:04 Clearly, Octavian had miscalculated.
25:08 He recalled Agrippa from Gaul,
25:10 and gave him absolute authority over a new naval campaign.
25:14 By the way, during his time in Gaul
25:17 Agrippa had technically qualified for a Triumph,
25:19 but after Octavian's defeat at sea he decided to forgo
25:22 the honour so that his partner could avoid embarrassment.
25:26 At this time, Octavian and Antony met up
25:29 to formally renew their alliance for another 5 years.
25:34 As part of this deal, they agreed to swap some military assets.
25:38 Octavian desperately needed ships, and Antony desperately needed legions.
25:43 Antony immediately transferred the ships to Octavian,
25:45 and Octavian promised to raise new legions
25:48 and send them east as soon as possible.
25:51 Spoiler alert, they were never sent.
25:56 There was (and is) a giant volcanic lake in southern Italy
26:00 that Agrippa decided to make use of as he began rebuilding Octavian's fleet.
26:05 It still exists, now known as Lake Avernus.
26:09 In Agrippa's time it was famous because according to legend,
26:12 it was right next to a cave that Odysseus used to travel down to the underworld.
26:18 After digging a short canal to the sea,
26:22 Agrippa built for himself a state-of-the-art
26:24 harbour and shipbuilding facility on the lake, and named it Port Julius.
26:29 At the time this lake was surrounded by trees on all sides,
26:32 which made the secret harbour invisible to any enemy ships.
26:36 Quite clever.
26:37 Over the next several months, he built and trained a new fleet from scratch.
26:43 Meanwhile, Octavian convinced Lepidus to support his campaign against Sextus.
26:48 Lepidus was only the governor of Africa,
26:50 but since his province was on the frontier
26:53 he had access to considerable resources.
26:57 When Agrippa was ready, he and Octavian launched a second invasion of Sicily.
27:02 This time, Lepidus attacked simultaneously from the south.
27:07 Octavian& Agrippa's fleet was intercepted by Sextus.
27:10 Despite all that secret training,
27:13 most of Agrippa's brand new fleet was destroyed.
27:16 These ships were also carrying an invasion force,
27:20 and so tens of thousands of legionaries perished in the water.
27:24 It was a disaster.
27:27 But it wasn't a complete loss.
27:29 Some ships made it through, and a few legions landed on the island.
27:33 Word quickly arrived reporting that Lepidus had successfully broke through,
27:38 and landed at least 12 legions on the southern tip of the island.
27:42 Now things were really cookin'.
27:44 The battle for Sicily was on.
27:53 The unfortunate thing is that Octavian and Agrippa couldn't
27:56 really do anything about their stranded legions in northern Sicily.
28:00 They were mostly out of ships and mostly out of legions.
28:03 But over the next several days, that started to change.
28:08 Ships belonging to Lepidus that had been damaged or chased off
28:11 during the initial invasion started showing up off the coast of Italy.
28:15 When they added everything together,
28:17 these ships were carrying the equivalent of something like 4 legions.
28:22 That was something they could work with!
28:24 If they could break through Sextus's blockade again,
28:27 they could reinforce those stranded legions in northern Sicily.
28:31 Even if it wasn't enough to face Sextus in open battle,
28:35 it would be enough to dig in and hold the enemy
28:38 back until Lepidus could work his way up from the south.
28:42 But how to break the blockade?
28:45 They would need a distraction.
28:48 Octavian and Agrippa decided to deliberately provoke a naval battle.
28:52 Then, when Sextus was committed,
28:54 they would slip a small number of transports over to Sicily.
28:59 This was a risky move!
29:00 They were sending the majority of their remaining fleet on a suicide mission.
29:04 But they thought it was worth it.
29:06 If they took Sicily, the war would end.
29:12 Agrippa personally took command of the fleet,
29:15 while Octavian went on the transports with the legions.
29:19 One of Sextus's patrols just happened to spot the transports.
29:23 Bad, dumb luck.
29:26 Half of the ships were destroyed,
29:28 but Octavian and about two legions somehow survived and made it to shore.
29:33 That evening, as the sun was setting, Sextus's fleet appeared on the horizon.
29:38 It confirmed everybody's worst fears.
29:42 Agrippa's fleet had been destroyed.
29:43 They were cut off from the north once more, trapped.
29:52 Almost simultaneously,
29:53 news arrived from the south that a large enemy army was on its way.
29:58 Bad, bad bad bad.
30:01 The legions threw up some rudimentary
30:03 defences and prepared for an imminent attack.
30:06 They would stay at full readiness all through the night.
30:10 Then Octavian was like "SEEMS LIKE YOU GOT THINGS UNDER CONTROL," and left.
30:14 That is not a joke.
30:16 He took the fastest remaining ship,
30:18 and bravely ran away (away) under the cover of darkness.
30:22 He promised to send help once he returned to Italy.
30:34 He made it back to the mainland, but just barely.
30:37 The ship dropped him off in the middle of nowhere,
30:39 but instead of running off to get help,
30:41 Octavian spent half a day hiding in a cave.
30:44 It was finally dawning on him that the war was probably lost.
30:49 Eventually, he started slowly making his way to the nearest city.
30:53 When he arrived, he learned that he
30:56 had been missing a vital piece of information.
30:59 That suicide mission that he had sent the fleet
31:02 on, it had gone much better than expected!
31:05 Agrippa was alive!
31:06 They took on a much larger fleet and fought them to a draw!
31:10 In the time since, Agrippa had won a series of minor victories at sea.
31:15 The wind was at their back, baby!
31:20 Octavian& Agrippa quickly threw together some more transport ships,
31:24 and as soon as they saw an opportunity, they went all in.
31:28 Finally, they pulled off a successful crossing.
31:30 At the end of this process, Octavian& Agrippa and Lepidus had a combined
31:35 force of something like 23 legions on Sicily,
31:38 which would have been at 60,000 soldiers at least, probably more.
31:43 With an invasion force of that size,
31:45 it was only a matter of time until Sextus lost the island.
31:50 He needed to change the direction of the war.
31:54 He decided to force a large-scale naval battle.
31:57 His natural advantage was at sea,
31:59 and one major victory would cut off the invasion force again.
32:04 The engagement would take place in September of 36 B.C.E.,
32:08 just off the coast of Sicily.
32:10 It would later be known as the Battle of Naulochus.
32:14 Sextus and Agrippa each personally commanded their fleets,
32:18 while Octavian watched from shore.
32:21 Actually, that's not quite true.
32:23 As soon as the fleets started moving toward each other,
32:27 Octavian walked away from his advisors and lay
32:29 flat on the ground, staring at the sky.
32:32 People came over a few times to give him progress updates,
32:35 but he didn't even respond.
32:37 The dude just didn't like all this military stuff.
32:42 He didn't move for many hours, until somebody informed him that it was all over.
32:48 Agrippa had won.
32:49 It was a decisive victory.
32:52 Sextus's fleet was no more.
32:59 After such a staggering loss at sea, Sextus's legions on Sicily surrendered.
33:04 The war was over.
33:07 Sextus fled east, but when Antony's people discovered
33:10 that he was secretly in communication with the Parthian king,
33:17 he was captured and executed.
33:23 With the war over, ships from Sicily began to fill Rome's granaries once more.
33:29 The famine was slowly brought to an end.
33:33 For years, Octavian had remained dangerously unpopular with the people of Rome.
33:38 But now, they hailed him as a hero.
33:41 All was forgiven.
33:45 But Lepidus wasn't happy.
33:47 The conquest of Sicily belonged to him.
33:50 The climactic final battle never would have
33:54 happened without Lepidus's breakthrough in the south.
33:57 If it wasn't for him, they'd still be fighting and they'd still be losing.
34:02 After accepting the surrender of Sextus's land forces,
34:05 Lepidus's army had ballooned from 12 to 20 legions.
34:08 He demanded to be taken seriously.
34:13 Octavian asked Lepidus to remove his legions from Sicily, but he refused.
34:18 Lepidus demanded to be made governor of Sicily,
34:21 as well as Sardinia, Corsica, basically all of Sextus's former possessions.
34:27 Octavian went to Sicily to work something out.
34:31 He entered Lepidus's camp,
34:33 where he was cheered and saluted by Lepidus's soldiers,
34:37 because, 'ya know, they had all just won a war together.
34:41 When Lepidus was informed of Octavian's presence,
34:44 he ordered him expelled from the camp.
34:47 It's not clear what happened next.
34:49 Somebody either threw a javelin at Octavian and missed,
34:52 or tried to stab him and had their blade deflected by body armour.
34:57 Next, he either made a rousing speech to Lepidus's soldiers, or he didn't.
35:02 Either way he then fled back outside the camp, to his bodyguards.
35:07 None of Lepidus's soldiers tried to stop him,
35:09 which implies that the man who attacked him may have been acting on his own.
35:14 Octavian waited outside the camp.
35:17 Some of Lepidus's soldiers decided to pack up and follow him, but not many.
35:22 Several hours later, Octavian's legions showed up.
35:26 More and more of Lepidus's soldiers decided to leave,
35:29 and pretty soon that trickle turned into a wave.
35:33 It's unclear whether Octavian made any specific promises,
35:36 but we do know that by the end
35:39 of the day Lepidus's army had basically evaporated.
35:42 That evening, Lepidus came out
35:45 of his camp and personally surrendered to Octavian.
35:49 This is such a weird incident.
35:51 It feels like parts of the story are embellished or fictionalized,
35:54 but it's hard for me to tell which parts.
35:57 We do know that Lepidus was pretty unpopular with his soldiers,
36:01 and that there was absolutely no appetite
36:03 among the rank-and-file for another civil war.
36:06 It's not impossible that there was a mass defection, but something's missing,
36:10 I doubt very much that it went down exactly in this way.
36:15 Regardless, Octavian reached a harsh settlement with Lepidus.
36:21 He accused him of inciting rebellion,
36:24 seized his legions and his provinces, and expelled him from the Triumvirate.
36:30 But oddly, Octavian didn't take his title.
36:33 Pontifex Maximus.
36:35 Lepidus had won the election to serve
36:38 as Rome's chief priest shortly after Julius Caesar's murder,
36:41 and for whatever reason,
36:43 Octavian felt that this was a line that he could not cross.
36:47 Lepidus entered into a forced retirement in a seaside town outside Rome.
36:53 He would return to Rome periodically on Senate business,
36:57 but not often, and not for long.
36:59 He would would retain the title of Pontifex Maximus for another 23 years,
37:04 until he died of natural causes at the age of 76.
37:14 In the mean time, peace returned to Rome.
37:17 For now.
37:19 Octavian had consolidated power in the west,
37:21 and with the famine coming to an end, he actually had the support of the people
37:27 for the first time in his political career.
37:30 This is all in sharp contrast to Antony.
37:34 Things in the east had grown incredibly strange.
37:38 Next time, we'll explore that strangeness,
37:40 and follow Antony's path to the brink of war.