The Second Triumvirate (43 to 33 BC), the Battle of Philippi (42 BC), Antony's Eastern policy and his alliance with Cleopatra, the propaganda war, and the Battle of Actium (31 BC)

A 10-mark response needs the political, military, and propaganda dimensions, plus historians.

Triumvirate consolidates (43-40 BC)

After Philippi (42 BC), Octavian took Italy and the West, Antony the East, Lepidus Africa. The Treaty of Brundisium (40 BC) confirmed the division and sealed Antony's marriage to Octavia.

Antony in the East

Failed Parthian campaign (36 BC). Alliance with Cleopatra VII, three children: Alexander Helios, Cleopatra Selene, Ptolemy Philadelphus.

Donations of Alexandria (34 BC)

Antony conferred royal titles on Cleopatra and her children. Caesarion named "King of Kings"; Cleopatra "Queen of Kings." Roman territories allocated to her children. Politically explosive in Rome.

Propaganda war

Octavian portrayed Antony as servant of an Eastern queen. Octavian published Antony's will (allegedly seized from the Vestal Virgins) showing burial arrangements with Cleopatra in Alexandria.

Breach (32 BC)

The Triumvirate had expired 31 December 33 BC. Octavian secured an oath of tota Italia. War declared on Cleopatra, not technically on Antony.

Battle of Actium (2 September 31 BC)

Naval battle off western Greece. Agrippa commanded Octavian's fleet. Antony's forces trapped by blockade. Cleopatra broke out with the treasure; Antony followed; the fleet surrendered. Antony's army defected days later.

Aftermath (30 BC)

Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide in August 30 BC. Caesarion killed. Egypt annexed as a Roman province under direct imperial control.

Historians

Goldsworthy (Augustus, 2014) treats Actium as the decisive military victory after political preparation. Beard (SPQR, 2015) reads the Donations as legitimate Hellenistic politics framed by Octavian as Eastern decadence.

Markers reward propaganda, Donations, Actium, and historians.

A 5-mark "outline" needs the location, the forces, the tactics, and the outcome.

Location and date

A naval engagement off the western coast of Greece, at the entrance to the Ambracian Gulf, on 2 September 31 BC.

Forces

Octavian commanded around 250 lighter Liburnian ships; Antony around 230 heavier quinqueremes. Cleopatra commanded an Egyptian squadron of around 60 ships including the treasure transports.

Strategy

Octavian, advised by his admiral Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, had blockaded Antony's fleet and army on land for months. Antony's army was suffering from disease and desertion.

Tactics

Antony attempted to break out of the blockade. After several hours of indecisive fighting, Cleopatra's Egyptian squadron broke through the centre carrying the treasure. Antony followed in a smaller ship. The remaining fleet surrendered.

Aftermath

Antony's land army surrendered days later. Antony and Cleopatra fled to Egypt. Within a year, both had committed suicide and Egypt had been annexed as a Roman province.

Markers reward Agrippa, the breakout, the surrender, and the consequence.

1 mark - names the lex Titia (proposed by the tribune Publius Titius, passed by the popular assembly, 27 November 43 BC), which gave Octavian, Antony and Lepidus the formal joint office of tresviri rei publicae constituendae ("triumvirs for the reorganisation of the state") for five years, with consular power (imperium) and the authority to legislate without senatorial approval.

1 mark - identifies that this made the Triumvirate legal, unlike Caesar's earlier informal First Triumvirate: it was a constitutional magistracy, not a private pact.

1 mark - describes the proscriptions that followed within days: the three men published lists condemning their political enemies (and, in several cases, personal enemies or wealthy men whose property they wanted) to death and confiscation, in the tradition of Sulla's proscriptions of 82 BC.

1 mark - names the death of Cicero (December 43 BC), the most prominent victim, killed on Antony's initiative after the Philippics.

Markers reward the correct name and date of the law, its constitutional character, and at least one specific consequence with a date/name.

1 mark - defines proscription: a published list naming citizens as outlaws, whose property was confiscated and who could be killed with impunity and a reward paid to the killer.

1 mark - gives the scale in the ancient tradition: Appian (Civil Wars 4.5) and later tradition place the number at around 300 senators and 2,000 equites (knights) proscribed; modern historians flag these figures as probably exaggerated for effect and impossible to verify precisely.

1 mark - explains the political function: the proscriptions eliminated opponents (Cicero, killed December 43 BC, was the most famous victim after his Philippics against Antony) and, crucially, raised cash to pay the triumvirs' huge armies before Philippi.

1 mark - explains the significance for interpretation: the proscriptions show the Triumvirate operating as an extra-legal terror despite its legal form, and set a precedent (echoing Sulla) that Octavian's own regime later worked hard to distance itself from in its propaganda.

Markers reward the ancient figure (flagged as tradition, not certain fact), Cicero by name, and the dual purpose (revenge and finance).

1-2 marks (identify/describe) - the coin pairs Octavian's and Antony's portraits and carries the triumviral title, presenting the two as equal, legitimate joint rulers; the reverse links both to the deified Caesar, from whom Octavian's authority derived (as adopted heir) and whom Antony had avenged.

2-3 marks (explain using own knowledge) - this matches the real political situation in 42 BC: the Triumvirate was freshly confirmed by the lex Titia, and Philippi (October 42 BC) was fought jointly, with Antony as the dominant military partner. Coinage of this type was a deliberate propaganda tool circulated to soldiers and the public to project triumviral unity ahead of and during the Philippi campaign.

1-2 marks (assess usefulness) - as archaeological/numismatic evidence, coinage is useful because it is official, contemporary and reaches a mass audience, but it is also propaganda: it shows the desired image of unity, not the real tensions (already visible in the unequal division of resources) that would surface within two years at Perusia and Brundisium. A student should note that coin evidence needs to be read alongside written sources (Appian, Cassius Dio) for the political narrative behind the image.

Markers reward correct decoding of the coin's message, a precise link to 42 BC events, and an explicit reliability/usefulness judgement (not just description).

1-2 marks - the Perusine War (41-40 BC): Antony's wife Fulvia and brother Lucius Antonius resisted Octavian's veteran land settlements in Italy, raising forces at Perusia; Octavian besieged and starved the city into surrender in early 40 BC. Fulvia fled and died soon after; Lucius was pardoned.

1-2 marks - the Treaty of Brundisium (40 BC): with Fulvia dead, Octavian and Antony re-divided the empire (Octavian the West, Antony the East, Lepidus Africa) and sealed the reconciliation with Antony's marriage to Octavian's sister Octavia.

1-2 marks - the Pact of Misenum (39 BC): a temporary settlement with Sextus Pompeius, son of Pompey the Great, who controlled Sicily and Rome's grain supply with his fleet; the pact recognised his control of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica in exchange for lifting his blockade of Italy. It broke down and Octavian (through Agrippa) defeated Sextus at Naulochus in 36 BC.

1 mark - Lepidus attempted to claim Sicily after Naulochus (36 BC) but his troops deserted to Octavian; he was stripped of triumviral power and confined to the office of Pontifex Maximus for life, leaving Octavian and Antony as the only two triumvirs.

Markers reward correct dates/sequence for Perusia, Brundisium, Misenum, Naulochus and Lepidus's fall, and recognition that each crisis was patched rather than resolved.

Band 6 thesis: Octavian's victory was decided chiefly in the propaganda war of 33-32 BC, which destroyed Antony's political standing in Rome and secured Octavian an army and a mandate before a shot was fired at Actium; the battle itself confirmed a victory that was, as Ronald Syme argued, substantially already won.

Argument line 1 - the propaganda campaign dismantled Antony politically. Octavian publicised the Donations of Alexandria (34 BC), in which Antony had granted Roman-claimed Eastern territories to Cleopatra and her children (Caesarion named "King of Kings"; Alexander Helios, Cleopatra Selene and Ptolemy Philadelphus each granted kingdoms), presenting this as the give-away of Roman territory to a foreign queen. Octavian then seized and published Antony's will from the Vestal Virgins in 32 BC, alleging Antony wished to be buried beside Cleopatra in Alexandria - whether or not authentic in full, its publication was politically ruinous and swayed Roman opinion decisively against Antony.

Argument line 2 - the oath of Italy created Octavian's legal and military mandate. In 32 BC Octavian secured a coniuratio totius Italiae, an oath of personal allegiance sworn by Italy and the western provinces (recorded by Octavian himself in the Res Gestae 25 as evidence of universal consent). This let Octavian declare war formally on Cleopatra alone through the fetial ritual, framing the coming conflict as a foreign war for national survival rather than another round of civil war between Roman citizens, and gave him troops and funding without needing Senate unanimity.

Argument line 3 - Actium confirmed rather than created the victory

By September 31 BC, Antony's forces at Actium were already weakened by disease and desertion after Agrippa's months-long blockade; the battle on 2 September 31 BC was, in Syme's phrase, an anticlimax after the political campaign - a breakout attempt in which Cleopatra's squadron fled with the treasure and Antony followed, after which the remaining fleet and the land army surrendered with little further fighting.

Counter-argument (for a full-mark response)

Goldsworthy cautions against reading Actium as a foregone conclusion - Octavian and Agrippa still had to translate political advantage into a functioning blockade and a competently fought naval campaign, and a military reverse in 31 BC could have unwound the propaganda gains. The extent question should therefore concede that Actium was necessary, even if the propaganda war made it likely to succeed.

Model paragraph

"The Donations of Alexandria and the publication of Antony's will did more to defeat Antony than any manoeuvre at Actium. By staging Antony as the tool of an Eastern queen giving away Roman provinces to her children, Octavian converted a personal rivalry between two triumvirs into a national emergency that only he could resolve. The coniuratio totius Italiae he records in the Res Gestae was the direct product of this campaign, delivering him the men and money to fight before Antony had time to answer the charge in Rome. Agrippa's blockade at Actium then exploited an army already rotted by disease and desertion, so that the battle itself, as Syme argues, merely confirmed a verdict reached in the court of Roman opinion the previous year."

Marker's note

full marks require dated evidence for the Donations, the will, the oath and Actium, an explicit "to what extent" judgement (not just narrative), and engagement with named historians (Syme's propaganda-victory reading against Goldsworthy's caution) rather than a single-source answer.

A Band 6 essay assesses the two instruments together, distinguishing what each achieved for the triumvirs, and reaches a weighted verdict. Plan plus model paragraph.

Thesis

The proscriptions and Philippi were complementary instruments of consolidation: the proscriptions secured the triumvirs' rear (money, terror, the elimination of the senatorial opposition at Rome), while Philippi destroyed the republican cause in the field. Philippi was the more decisive because it removed the only army that could have reversed the lex Titia, but without the proscriptions the campaign could not have been financed or safely fought.

Line 1: the proscriptions as political surgery

From late 43 BC the triumvirs posted lists condemning their enemies: the tradition (Appian, Civil Wars 4.5) puts the toll at around 300 senators and 2,000 equites, figures to be treated as ancient tradition rather than audited fact. The deaths (Cicero above all, killed 7 December 43 BC) decapitated the republican leadership in Italy and advertised that the amnesty politics of 44 BC were over.

Line 2: the proscriptions as war finance

Confiscated estates were auctioned to pay the enormous armies (over 40 legions between the parties by 42 BC). The measure worked poorly as revenue (frightened markets, depressed prices), which is itself evidence the primary motive mixed finance with terror and vengeance for Caesar.

Line 3: Philippi as the military decision

In October 42 BC the two battles at Philippi in Macedonia ended with the suicides of Cassius and then Brutus. The republican field army dissolved, and with it any prospect of restoring the pre-Caesarian order; the surviving opposition was reduced to Sextus Pompeius's fleet. Antony took the victor's prestige, a fact that shaped the next decade's balance between the triumvirs.

Line 4: qualification and aftermath

Consolidation was not completion: Perusia (41-40 BC), Sextus Pompeius, and the triumvirs' own rivalry showed that the settlement created by terror and victory remained unstable, because it had removed the republic without deciding which dynast would replace it.

Model paragraph (line 3)

Philippi mattered more than any list posted in the Forum because armies, not edicts, decided the age. So long as Brutus and Cassius held the East with twenty legions and the treasuries of Asia, the lex Titia was a claim rather than a fact, and every proscribed name was an argument for their cause. The double battle of October 42 BC converted the triumvirate's legal fiction into a monopoly of force: after Cassius's premature suicide and Brutus's defeat, no republican army existed anywhere in the Roman world. What remained thereafter was not a struggle for the republic but a struggle for its inheritance, fought between the victors themselves.

Conclusion

Jointly decisive in sequence: the proscriptions made the war winnable and Rome obedient, Philippi made the triumvirate unchallengeable; a strong answer notes that the same instruments guaranteed the triumvirate would eventually devour itself.

Marker's note: "assess the role" requires each instrument's contribution weighed, with precise dated evidence (lex Titia November 43 BC, Cicero's death, Philippi October 42 BC, the Appian figures flagged as tradition) and the aftermath acknowledged. A narrative of the proscription horrors without an argued verdict caps the response at mid-band.