Antony's Invasion of Parthia (42 to 33 B.C.E.)

0:08 In the last video, we followed Caesar's adopted son and political heir

0:13 Octavian as he returned to Rome fresh from his victory at Philippi.

0:18 The city he came back to was one unfamiliar to him,

0:21 in the midst of a catastrophic economic depression and a famine.

0:26 Casual, brutal violence gripped the entire region.

0:30 Over the next 6 years, Octavian made a series of misguided

0:35 decisions that deepened and prolonged the crisis,

0:38 resulting perhaps hundreds of thousands of additional deaths.

0:43 But finally, with a run of good luck, he was able to defeat the rebel Boat

0:47 King Sextus Pompeius and seize control of Sicily,

0:51 which slowly began to ease the famine.

0:54 The conflict brought Octavian to the very edge of ruin,

0:58 but peace brought with it popularity,

1:00 and he emerged from the crisis as the unrivalled leader of a unified Roman West.

1:07 Antony's situation over this same period was entirely different,

1:10 as if it were taking place in a parallel universe.

1:15 The Roman East relied heavily upon

1:17 the cooperation of local warlords and aristocrats, but over the last decade,

1:22 Roman negligence had allowed petty disputes

1:25 between these groups to fester and grow.

1:29 Trust was low, and by the time Antony got there,

1:32 the entire region felt like it was

1:33 on the verge of being ripped apart by factionalism.

1:43 After Philippi, Antony took a leisurely tour through the Roman East,

1:47 aiming to settle these disputes and meet with as many local leaders as possible.

1:52 In time, a message went out to Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt,

1:56 inviting her to come and meet with Antony in the city of Tarsus.

2:01 Egypt was still an independent kingdom,

2:03 although that independence seemed to be hanging on a knife's edge.

2:07 Up until very recently the country had been

2:10 compelled to play host to several Roman legions,

2:14 and there was a concern within Egypt that with the end of their civil war,

2:18 the Romans might just decide to bring the legions back, maybe permanently.

2:23 Egypt under Cleopatra had to navigate an impossible path.

2:27 She had to assert Egypt's independence from a position of relative weakness,

2:31 but she couldn't do so in a way that provoked a Roman intervention.

2:36 Cleopatra was well prepared for this moment.

2:39 She had already placed informants inside Antony's inner circle,

2:42 who explained to her that Antony was extremely vain,

2:46 easily influenced by flattery, and not a skilled negotiator.

2:51 This was enough for Cleopatra to formulate a strategy.

2:55 She set sail for Tarsus.

3:04 When Cleopatra's royal barge appeared on the horizon,

3:07 the residents of Tarsus could not believe their eyes.

3:11 The ship had been plated with gold,

3:13 and was being propelled through the water by a set of silver oars.

3:17 The sails had been dyed purple, which we may not find very impressive,

3:21 but purple dye was so rare in the ancient

3:24 world that it was literally worth its weight in gold.

3:27 Children dressed as Eros or Cupid, the god of desire,

3:31 crowded the deck of the ship surrounded by a flock of musicians playing flutes.

3:42 At the centre of it all sat Cleopatra,

3:46 reclined under a golden canopy, dressed as Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love.

3:51 To the residents of the city of Tarsus,

3:54 it appeared as if the gods themselves had

3:57 personally come to seek an audience with Antony.

4:00 It was a flattering image, and exactly the kind to which Antony was susceptible.

4:07 Antony and Cleopatra spent the next 4 days locked in "aggressive

4:16 negotiations." The only thing that Antony really cared about was Parthia.

4:21 Caesar had been on the Parthian warpath at the time of his death,

4:25 and as far as Antony was concerned this was unfinished business.

4:29 Also, it must be said that Antony wanted a war.

4:34 Caesar had shown that successful conquest can be

4:37 a platform from which one can seize power.

4:42 Octavian had his war with Sextus in the west,

4:45 but that was nothing compared to Parthia.

4:47 A victory here would outshine Octavian a hundredfold.

4:51 There was no bigger prize.

4:54 Even though Egypt was an independent kingdom,

4:57 Cleopatra agreed to help supply a future Roman campaign into Parthia.

5:01 This was exactly what Antony wanted.

5:04 But Cleopatra had some concerns of her own.

5:07 Rome was holding several Egyptian political prisoners,

5:10 including Cleopatra's sister Arsinoe.

5:12 Her sister had briefly sat on the Egyptian throne,

5:16 which made her a potential rival.

5:18 A potential replacement.

5:20 Rome was holding her for a reason.

5:23 Cleopatra wanted her dead.

5:25 Antony agreed.

5:28 Cleopatra then invited Antony to come and spend the winter in Alexandria.

5:32 It was around this time that the two began a romantic relationship.

5:39 It's hard to know Cleopatra's precise motivations

5:41 because we can't be inside of her head,

5:44 but it seems based on her actions that flattering

5:47 and perhaps even seducing Antony was all part of the plan.

5:55 Military preparations for a Roman invasion of Parthia continued all winter,

5:59 and Antony made no attempt to conceal his plans.

6:02 And so maybe it shouldn't have come as a surprise when the Parthians

6:06 launched a preemptive attack and invaded Syria in the spring of 40 B.C.E.

6:12 Antony immediately abandoned his little Egyptian vacation

6:15 and went to Greece to raise additional legions.

6:19 When he arrived, he learned that the man that he had

6:22 appointed governor in Syria had been captured and executed by the Parthians.

6:27 In Greece, Antony began receiving regular updates from the Roman West once more.

6:32 The rebellion instigated by his brother Lucius

6:34 and his wife Fulvia had just ended in failure,

6:37 which means that at their greatest moment of peril,

6:40 Antony had been hanging out with his girlfriend

6:43 in a different country with his phone turned off!

6:46 Was this on purpose?

6:48 Did he strategically make himself unreachable at this time?

6:53 Perhaps.

6:56 Antony and Fulvia reunited in Greece,

7:00 but within a few months Fulvia fell ill, and died.

7:06 We're told that she died of natural causes,

7:09 but we're also told that she "aggravated her illness

7:13 deliberately," to which I say..."what?" Here's another data point.

7:18 The moment that Fulvia fell ill,

7:20 Antony had just learned that Cleopatra gave birth to twins.

7:24 We know that the couple thought that this was an historic occasion

7:27 because they would later name

7:29 the children Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene.

7:33 The Sun and the Moon.

7:35 It was at this pivotal moment that Fulvia mysteriously fell ill and died.

7:41 I'm not sayin' there was foul play,

7:43 I'm just sayin' that Antony definitely murdered his wife.

7:49 Meanwhile, Antony received a letter from his mother in Rome.

7:57 She claimed that Sextus Pompeius had contacted her, and wanted

8:00 to form an alliance with Antony against Octavian.

8:04 Antony replied noncommittally.

8:07 Sextus must have found this answer a little confusing,

8:10 since Antony's wife and brother had just attempted to stage a coup.

8:15 This decision to keep Sextus at arm's

8:18 length started looking like a mistake almost immediately,

8:21 because when one of Antony's generals in Gaul unexpectedly died,

8:25 Octavian used the opportunity to move against him

8:29 and seize control of 11 of his Gallic legions.

8:32 Antony dropped his preparations for the Parthian campaign at once,

8:35 and departed for Italy with whatever strength he could muster.

8:40 After a brief standoff, the two agreed to re-split the Roman world.

8:44 The Treaty of Brundisium gave Antony the east,

8:47 Octavian the west, and Lepidus the province of Africa.

8:52 The idea behind this new arrangement was to prevent future

8:55 incidents like this by giving everybody clearly defined areas of influence.

9:01 Antony was fine making these concessions.

9:04 His entire focus was on the upcoming Parthian campaign,

9:09 The treaty was finalized with a marriage between Antony and Octavian's sister.

9:15 It's really a weird coincidence that this alliance was

9:18 only made possible by the untimely death of Antony's wife.

9:23 Again, I'm not saying that Antony murdered his wife,

9:25 but he did do that and I am saying that and he should be in jail!

9:35 Antony stuck around for a while and helped

9:37 Octavian negotiate a new deal with Sextus.

9:40 When that wrapped up, Antony returned to Greece.

9:45 In the mean time, the Parthians,

9:47 facing minimal opposition, had penetrated deep into Roman territory.

9:54 After taking the province of Syria, they split their invasion force and launched

9:58 simultaneous attacks against Asia Minor to the north, and Judea to the south,

10:03 which was a semi-independent puppet kingdom under Roman influence.

10:07 The southern offensive into Judea was personally

10:10 lead by the son of the Parthian king.

10:12 The northern offensive into Asia Minor was lead by none

10:15 other than the son of Caesar's old right hand man Labienus.

10:19 Antony's reorganization of the Roman East

10:22 left him deeply unpopular with some aristocrats,

10:26 and so each Parthian army was able to pick up local support as they advanced.

10:32 While Antony was struggling to mobilize a large-scale response,

10:35 he placed a small advance force of maybe 2 legions under the command

10:39 of a general named Ventidius and sent him east to slow the son of Labienus down.

10:45 With very little resources and an impossible task ahead of him,

10:50 Ventidius exceeded everybody's expectations.

10:52 He occupied a narrow mountain pass called the Cilician Gates,

10:56 and provoked a Parthian attack.

10:58 The superior Roman infantry held their ground, and then attacked downhill,

11:03 turning the Parthian army and securing a minor victory.

11:06 But even more importantly,

11:07 the son of Labienus was captured during the confusion.

11:12 Ventidius ordered him put to death.

11:14 In one move, the northern Parthian advance had been stopped in its tracks.

11:20 In the aftermath, each side scrambled for control

11:23 of another key choke point called the Amanus Pass,

11:26 but when Ventidius threw all of his strength into it he won that battle as well.

11:33 Ventidius's job had been to slow

11:35 the Parthian advance while Antony built his strength.

11:39 But that wasn't what was happening.

11:41 Ventidius was accidentally winning the entire campaign.

11:44 In two moves, the Parthians had been pushed all the way back to Syria.

11:50 Off to the south, the son of the Parthian

11:52 king heard about the collapse of the northern campaign, and pulled out of Judea.

11:57 By the time Ventidius reached Syria

12:00 he had received some reinforcements from Antony.

12:03 How many reinforcements?

12:04 Hard to say.

12:05 When did this happen?

12:06 Also hard to say.

12:07 The sources surrounding this incident are bad!

12:11 The two Parthian armies combined their forces and advanced once more.

12:16 The Romans awaited them at a site called Mount Gindarus.

12:21 In each of the two previous battles, as soon as the Parthians were forced

12:25 to confront the Roman infantry directly, they fled.

12:28 Ventidius suspected that this might happen a third time,

12:31 and so he tricked the Parthians into believing

12:33 that his little army had been badly weakened,

12:35 when in fact they had only been strengthened by reinforcements.

12:39 As predicted, the Parthians pulled back

12:41 when they encountered the Roman infantry,

12:43 but this time they ran straight into an ambush.

12:47 The Parthian invaders were obliterated,

12:49 and the son of the Parthian king was killed.

12:54 The Senate and People of Rome would later reward Ventidius with a Triumph.

12:57 Well deserved, in my opinion.

13:02 Antony moved quickly to re-establish control over the Roman East.

13:06 He brought Judea back under Roman influence by elevating a pro-Roman

13:11 ruler named Herod and helping him purge Parthian sympathizers from the kingdom.

13:16 Around this time, Antony travelled back west and offered

13:19 to give Octavian some ships in exchange for some legions.

13:22 We now fully understand why.

13:25 Antony had just seen the Roman East overrun by the Parthians,

13:27 and as I covered in the last video,

13:30 Octavian had his own problems with the Boat King.

13:33 Unfortunately for Antony, Octavian never got around to sending his legions east.

13:38 Or...let's just say that when he did get around to sending his legions east,

13:42 it was not in the way that Antony expected!

13:46 Antony's long-awaited invasion of Parthia finally came in 36 B.C.E.

13:53 Antony had spent years thinking about how to approach this campaign.

13:58 The last Roman general to attempt an invasion had been

14:01 soundly defeated by the Parthian cavalry at the Battle of Carrhae.

14:05 This defeat taught Antony a valuable lesson.

14:08 Instead of pushing east,

14:10 Antony would march north and cut through Rome's ally Armenia.

14:14 Antony's basic theory was that the open plains

14:17 of Mesopotamia made the Parthian cavalry virtually unstoppable.

14:21 The hills and mountains of Armenia, on the other hand,

14:25 would be much more conducive to Roman infantry and their style of fighting.

14:29 If the Parthians were foolish enough to throw

14:32 their cavalry against the mountains of Armenia, let 'em.

14:35 If not, Antony could march east, and then south,

14:38 and then he would have a Roman army on the Persian Plateau,

14:41 threatening the heart of the Parthian Empire.

14:44 I've gotta say...I don't hate this strategy!

14:48 Say what you will about Antony, and I have and I will,

14:51 but he did the work of studying

14:53 previous Roman defeats and actually learned something.

15:00 If Antony was going to march all the way into the heart of the Parthian Empire,

15:04 he would need Egypt's full support.

15:07 Cleopatra had already promised to supply the upcoming campaign,

15:11 but Antony needed to be sure.

15:14 He couldn't have the most powerful kingdom in the region

15:17 doing anything unexpected while he was thousands of kilometres away.

15:21 Antony and Cleopatra got together and discussed the future of Egypt.

15:26 Rome would support Egypt acquiring a bunch

15:29 of new territory up the Mediterranean coast.

15:31 From Antony's perspective,

15:33 this would guarantee Egyptian cooperation if the Parthians ever invaded again.

15:38 From Cleopatra's perspective,

15:40 this elevated Egypt to its most powerful position in two centuries.

15:45 Everybody was happy.

15:47 Speaking of being happy,

15:49 it was around this time that Cleopatra became pregnant once more.

15:54 With somewhere between 15 and 18 legions under his command,

15:59 Antony launched his invasion of Parthia.

16:02 As planned, he marched north and cut through the friendly kingdom of Armenia.

16:07 The first phase of the campaign appears to have been successful,

16:10 because the Parthians in the Mesopotamian

16:13 Lowlands were caught completely flat-footed.

16:15 As Antony advanced through the mountains of Armenia,

16:18 he knew that time was of the essence.

16:21 For the sake of speed,

16:23 he allowed the baggage train to lag behind while the main army marched ahead.

16:28 Eventually, they emerged into Parthian territory,

16:30 where he immediately laid siege to the city of Phraata.

16:40 Just a side note, this was technically

16:42 the capital city of a separate kingdom called...

16:45 oh boy...we're just gonna throw it away with confidence...

16:51 Media Atropatene which was closely aligned with Parthia.

16:56 This is not an important distinction since every map I've seen

16:59 just goes ahead and counts this as part of the Parthian Empire,

17:02 but I only mention it because Antony's objective here may have been

17:06 to split Media Atropatene away from Parthia

17:09 and into the Roman sphere of influence.

17:13 As Antony was settling into the siege of Phraata,

17:16 Roman supplies were still slowly snaking

17:18 their way through the mountains of Armenia.

17:22 With no warning, the Parthians attacked.

17:25 But they didn't attack Antony, they attacked the baggage train.

17:28 A small military force under the command

17:31 of the Armenian king was quickly defeated,

17:34 and the majority of Roman supplies were taken or destroyed.

17:38 And by Roman supplies I mean Cleopatra's supplies,

17:41 since Antony had asked her to back this entire campaign.

17:46 Oopsie doopsie!

17:50 All accounts of this event come to us through pro-Antony sources,

17:54 so it shouldn't be too surprising that they blame everybody except Antony.

17:59 There's an accusation made that the Armenian king stabbed

18:02 Antony in the back and tipped off the Parthians.

18:05 There's also some talk that there may have

18:08 been a Parthian spy in Antony's inner circle.

18:11 Maybe this is true, but the likeliest

18:13 scenario is that Antony simply miscalculated, and the Parthians pounced.

18:19 Despite this early setback, Antony pressed on.

18:22 If they could win the siege of Phraata,

18:26 all of their supply problems would be solved.

18:29 That's a polite way of saying that they would loot the city.

18:32 But city was better defended than Antony had anticipated,

18:36 and when the Parthians descended on Phraata

18:39 and began conducting hit and run attacks, it only made matters worse.

18:43 The Romans had a hard time building and defending siege equipment.

18:48 Antony kept up the fight for as long as he could,

18:51 but he was up against the clock.

18:52 At the last possible moment,

18:54 he made the heartbreaking decision to abandon the siege.

18:58 He turned around and began the long march back to Armenia.

19:09 The idea had always been to spend the winter in Parthian territory,

19:13 nobody had planned for an early retreat.

19:15 The Parthian cavalry harassed the Romans all the way back to Armenia,

19:19 impeding their progress and exhausting their soldiers.

19:23 By the time they reached the mountains of Armenia,

19:26 the weather had begun to turn.

19:28 Snowstorms slowed their progress even further,

19:30 and food rations were cut to a bare minimum.

19:34 Antony tried to keep pushing forward, but nobody had packed any winter clothing.

19:38 Soldiers were forced to trudge through

19:41 the snow in their Mediterranean style sandals, with their bare legs exposed.

19:46 Through all of this, persistent Parthian cavalry raids

19:49 forced the Romans to stop several times a day.

19:54 By the time Antony limped all the way back to Syria,

19:57 he had lost between 25 and 50% of his army to starvation or the cold.

20:03 The survivors no longer resembled soldiers,

20:06 they were disturbingly thin and dressed in rags,

20:10 many having left their armour behind in the snow.

20:14 As soon as Antony was able,

20:16 he sent a letter to Cleopatra requesting money, food, and winter clothing.

20:21 The survivors of the Parthian campaign then huddled next to the coast,

20:25 fearful that a Parthian counterattack was imminent.

20:29 Antony also wrote to Octavian and the Roman Senate,

20:33 characterizing the Parthian campaign as a victory.

20:36 I'll let you decide whether starving to death

20:38 on the side of a mountain counts as a victory.

20:41 He ended by asking for those legions that Octavian had promised him a year ago.

20:47 Octavian gave him every excuse in the book,

20:49 the legions weren't ready, problems with recruitment, blah blah blah.

20:53 It was around this time that Antony took to heavy drinking.

21:06 Despite having falsely claimed victory,

21:08 Antony spent the next year going around and propagating

21:11 this story about how the Armenians stabbed Rome in the back.

21:17 In 34 B.C.E., he used this as pretext for an invasion.

21:23 Armenia didn't stand a chance,

21:24 in no time at all the Armenian king was captured and the war was over.

21:30 This recrimination against Armenia stinks of injured pride and a bruised ego.

21:36 It also proves that Antony was not a particularly deep political thinker.

21:41 The king of Armenia had always favoured an alliance with Rome,

21:44 but his son was of a different mind, and favoured an alliance with Parthia.

21:49 Well, within a couple of years, that's exactly what happened.

21:54 This drift toward Parthia left Rome

21:56 in an objectively worse geopolitical situation,

21:59 but hey, at least Antony felt better.

22:05 Back in Alexandria, Antony celebrated a Triumph,

22:09 and humiliated the Armenian king by using

22:14 him as a centrepiece in the celebration.

22:16 Unsurprisingly, the earlier defeat at the hands

22:20 of the Parthians was not mentioned.

22:23 Some time after the Triumph, Antony orchestrated a bizarre event known

22:27 to history as The Donations of Alexandria.

22:30 It took place in the Gymnasium of Alexandria,

22:32 which was a structure more than 200 meters in length,

22:35 described by Strabo as the most beautiful building in the city.

22:40 Before a packed crowd, Antony and Cleopatra sat upon thrones, dressed as gods.

22:46 Antony addressed the crowd, and opened with an shocking revelation.

22:50 Years earlier, Caesar and Cleopatra had secretly been married,

22:54 which meant that Cleopatra's child Caesarian,

22:57 now around 13 years old, was in fact Caesar's legitimate heir.

23:02 The problem with this claim is that it was not true.

23:06 No other source says anything about a secret marriage,

23:09 and even if it did, Caesar was already married, it would have been illegal.

23:13 But Antony made the claim anyways!

23:15 Why?

23:16 Because elevating Caesarian served a strategic purpose.

23:20 Who would this hurt?

23:21 Octavian, of course!

23:24 We'll get around to Octavian's response later,

23:26 but for now Antony had more to say.

23:28 He reaffirmed his support for Cleopatra

23:31 and Caesarian as the legitimate rulers of Egypt,

23:34 and then went one step further and bestowed new titles upon each of them.

23:39 Queen of Kings for Cleopatra, and King of Kings for Caesarian.

23:43 These titles had a special significance in the region,

23:45 it put them up on the same level as the King of Parthia.

23:49 Cleopatra was to oversee a vast expansion of Egyptian territory,

23:53 and preside over a group of lesser kings

23:57 that would administer their territory in her name.

24:00 Some of these lesser kings were to be her own children.

24:04 Antony then turned to his son Alexander Helios, now 5 or 6 years old.

24:09 To Alexander, he conferred the following titles: the King of Armenia,

24:13 the King of Media, and the King of Parthia.

24:16 Like I said, these titles were to be subordinate to Egypt, and to Egypt's queen.

24:21 If you were paying attention you might have noticed

24:24 that none of these titles were Antony's to give.

24:27 Most of this territory was outside of Roman influence,

24:31 and even recently defeated Armenia had already

24:34 gone ahead and selected a new king.

24:36 You might say that these titles were aspirational.

24:40 To Cleopatra Selene, Alexander Helios's twin sister,

24:43 Antony granted a much more modest but realistic set of titles.

24:48 Queen of Cyrenaica and Queen of Crete.

24:51 Again, these would be subordinate to Cleopatra.

24:55 While Cyrenaica and Crete weren't exactly the greatest prizes,

24:58 they did have the benefit of being

25:01 territory that was actually under Egypt's control.

25:05 Antony and Cleopatra's two year old son,

25:08 whom they had named Ptolemy Philadelphus, received titles as well.

25:12 Again, these would all be subordinate to the ruler of Egypt.

25:17 Ptolemy Philadelphus would become the King of Syria,

25:19 the King of Phoenicia, and the King of Cilicia.

25:23 Don't get too thrown off by the title "King

25:26 of Syria," it seems that Antony's idea was for the King

25:29 of Syria to provide a much needed buffer between

25:32 the Roman province of Syria and the rest of the world.

25:37 People sometimes mischaracterize the Donations of Alexandria

25:40 as Antony giving away Roman territory, but that's not what happened here.

25:45 Antony's goal was to fundamentally reorganize the Roman East

25:49 into a stable system of alliances that would hold up over generations.

25:54 The Roman East was a relatively new concept.

25:57 The first Roman tip-toes into Asia Minor began only 100 years ago,

26:01 and the Roman presence in places like Syria was only 30 years old.

26:07 Regional stability relied on support from allies like Thrace,

26:11 Lycia, Galatia, Armenia, and Judea.

26:14 But recent history had taught Antony that this system sucked.

26:19 These allies had no love for Rome,

26:21 and at first opportunity they switched sides like it was nothing.

26:25 The constant threat of a Parthian invasion

26:27 meant that Rome couldn't really do anything

26:29 about this, they just had to accept weak allied support when they could get it.

26:34 Antony's idea was to develop an interconnected system

26:37 of alliances using Egypt as a central hub.

26:42 Distant territories like Armenia and Cyrenaica and Cilicia

26:45 would be linked together through their relationship with Egypt.

26:49 The system would be self-policing.

26:52 Opportunistically switching sides would mean incurring

26:55 the wrath of this expanded Egyptian Empire.

26:59 In order for this system to work,

27:01 all Rome had to do was maintain a strong partnership with Egypt.

27:05 So far so good with Cleopatra.

27:08 Who was next in line after her?

27:10 The son of Julius Caesar.

27:12 A Roman on the Egyptian throne.

27:20 You can agree or disagree with Antony's strategic vision,

27:23 but I wanted to make it clear that the idea was logically sound.

27:27 I would argue that it was putting a lot of eggs into one Egypt-sized basket,

27:31 but that was Antony's decision.

27:33 He wasn't losing his mind, and he wasn't turning his back on the people of Rome.

27:38 It was a real strategy,

27:41 designed to provide regional stability far into the future.

27:47 But that wasn't how things were being characterized in the west.

27:50 When Antony submitted his plan to the Roman Senate for their approval,

27:54 Octavian threw a fit.

27:56 His entire political identity was wrapped up

27:58 in being Caesar's only son and heir,

28:00 and now Antony was claiming that Caesar had another son on the Egyptian throne.

28:05 It was a direct challenge to Octavian.

28:08 At this time, Octavian had just

28:11 recently defeated Sextus Pompeius and recaptured Sicily.

28:14 He was popular for the first time in his political career.

28:18 He decided to use that against Antony.

28:21 At Octavian's direction,

28:23 the Roman Senate denied Antony's reorganization of the Roman East.

28:27 This was a massive breach in their agreement.

28:31 Antony was supposed to have a free hand to do

28:34 as he wished in the territory under his control.

28:37 Now that was being taken away from him.

28:41 Octavian then went to the people of Rome.

28:43 He pretended to be outraged over the fact

28:45 that Antony staged a Roman Triumph on foreign soil.

28:49 He used the incident as proof that Antony had

28:52 betrayed Rome and thrown in his lot with the Egyptians.

28:56 He twisted the Donations of Alexandria to fit this narrative,

28:59 and told the people of Rome that Antony was

29:03 setting up a dynasty for himself at Rome's expense.

29:06 But of course, that wasn't what Antony was doing.

29:10 He was trying to make the Roman East more resilient.

29:13 But the truth didn't matter.

29:16 Maybe Octavian had always planned on turning against Antony,

29:18 or maybe the Caesarian thing spooked him into rethinking their relationship,

29:22 but either way, his goal was now to pick a fight.

29:27 When the agreement between Antony and Octavian came up for renewal in 33 B.C.E.,

29:32 both sides just let it expire.

29:35 The Second Triumvirate was dead.

29:38 Bad politics had allowed the combined military might of the entire

29:42 Roman Empire to fall into the hands of two people.

29:46 It was only a matter of time before one began

29:49 to see the other as a direct threat to their power,

29:53 and once that happened, a civil war became inevitable.

30:04 Speaking of being happy,

30:08 it was around this time that Antony(???) became pregnant once more?

30:19 Whoops, that's not right!

30:20 I don't think that happened!