While Caesar and Agrippa were working hard to bring order to the Balkans and winning over the hearts and minds of the Roman people at home, Antonius was fighting wars of his own in the East but intent on winning the heart of a single woman. Separated by distance and time, Caesar and Antonius continued their friendship through official correspondence with each other but shared private confidences by letter with their mutual friend, and Agrippa’s father-in-law, Atticus.1 They were still brothers-in-law, but their relationship, which had always been one of political convenience, had changed. Imperator Caesar was now ambitious for power for himself and ‘desired to be chief, not merely of the city of Rome, but of the whole world’.2 While Antonius was a free agent, Caesar’s ambitions were crimped.
Since Brundisium, when the triumvirs had carved up the world between them, Antonius had subsumed himself in his exotic territory. He re-organized the provinces in Asia and Greece, and formed close relations with the many kingdoms and princedoms which were treaty allies of the Romans. Antonius was a natural networker. He was careful to court the favours of the client kings who ruled in the region. These included Bokchos (Bocchus), king of Libya, Tarkondimos (Tarcondemus), king of Upper Cilicia, Archelaos (Archelaüs) of Cappadocia, Philadelphos (Philadelphus) of Paphlagonia, Mithridates of Commagene, and Sadalas of Thrace, Polemon I of Pontus, Malchos (Malchus) of Arabia, Amyntas the king of Lycaonia and Galatia, and Herodes (Herod), king of the Jews.3 In return for his personal support, which might mean representing them at the Senate in Rome if a charge was brought or sending an army to help fend off an enemy, these client-kings were obligated to provide financial and military assistance when Antonius, as the ranking Roman official, called for it. It was an arrangement which suited national leaders whose situation was often precarious without the backing of a major alliance partner – and it suited Rome which did not have to incur the overhead costs of occupying these territories.4
Herodes (Hordos in Hebrew) exemplified how a client king could rule with Roman support.5 He was the second son of Antipater I the Idumaean, a high-ranking official employed by the leader (ethnarches) of Iudaea Hyrcanus II of the Hasmonaean dynasty, who appointed him governor of Galilee when he was in his mid-twenties. After Iulius Caesar’s assassination Antipater was forced to side with C. Cassius Longinus and against M. Antonius, however his pro-Roman politics led to him becoming increasingly unpopular among the devout, non-Hellenized Jews. Herodes’ father was murdered by poisoning, and, with the backing of the Roman authorities, he hunted down and executed Antipater’s murderer, quickly earning a deserved reputation for cruelty. After the Battle of Philippi Herodes, then 31-years-old, took a chance by showing personal support for the victors and by so doing he gained the support of Antonius. When the triumvir marched into Asia, he appointed Herodes tetrarch of Galilee, one of the two administrative districts of Iudaea. In 40 or 39 BCE, with the help of the Parthians, Antigonos II Mattathias (son of King Aristobulus II) took the throne from his uncle Hyrcanus II by force, hoping to establish an independent Jewish state. Seeking the help of his Roman sponsor to restore his position, Herodes sailed west in a hurry to Brundisium and travelled on to Rome.6 With the support of Caesar and Antonius he addressed the Senate, arguing that Antigonos was the real enemy and convinced the Conscript Fathers to recognize him, a loyal friend of the Romans, as legitimate king (ethnarch) of the Jews.7 After returning to his country and winning a brutal three year war, Herodes reclaimed his seat and became sole ruler of Iudaea.8 Captured by force, Antigonos was hauled away in chains and sent to Antonius along with cash and treasure confiscated from the supporters of the Parthian’s puppet.9 Herodes had demonstrated that he knew who his friends were.
Sex. Pompeius was not so fortunate. He had fled and sought asylum with Antonius in 35 BCE. On landing in Miletos in Anatolia he was arrested. Perhaps acting on direct orders from Antonius or Munatius Plancus, his deputy M. Titius had him killed.10 His execution was an illegal act as all Roman citizens were entitled to a trial, and whether or not Antonius was behind it – the ancient historians are split on whether he was – the matter would come to haunt him later.11
To his core, Antonius was a soldier – and a proud one. It was said he believed that there would be no better death for him than that by battle.12 As governor general in the East he sought to settle an old score. He conceived a military campaign against Rome’s nemesis Parthia. It was motivated by a desire to restore national honour after Crassus’ humiliating defeat at Carrhae in 53 BCE by Orodes II, and the Parthian incursions led by the quisling Q. Labienus on behalf of King Pacorus I in 40 BCE. After two years Antonius had assembled an army of his own troops supplemented by men and materiel from client kings and allies. At the start of his campaign he had 60,000 Roman infantry, together with 10,000 Celtiberian cavalry, and 30,000 assorted soldiers counting alike horsemen and light-armed troops from allies.13 Yet he complained that he was still short of the troops he had been promised by Caesar in return for the ships he had provided for the Sicilan War against Sex. Pompeius. Antonius would have to bolster his numbers by calling on Rome’s sole ally in the region. North of the Parthian province of Mesopotamia lay the great state of Armenia ruled by Artavasdes II, son of Tigranes the Great. Artavasdes II had been an ally of the Romans, but when they were defeated at Carrhae, he was forced to switch sides. Seeing an opportunity to free himself of Parthian obligations, he now switched sides again, this time allying himself with Antonius. On the advice of Artavasdes II of Armenia, Antonius planned to invade Parthia from the north – not from the west – by invading the Parthian client kingdom to the east of Armenia called Media Atropatene. Bordering on the Caspian Sea, it was ruled by Artavasdes I – no relation to the Armenian – and the loyal ally of the Parthian king, Phraates IV. Antonius’ decision was fateful. His advance with thirteen legions reached Phraaspa, the strongly fortified capital of Media Atropatene.14 According to Plutarch, the siege engines, which required 300 wagons to transport them, as well as a giant battering ram he would need to capture walled cities, he decided to leave behind – according to Velleius Paterculus, he lost two legions and their siege equipment to the Parthians.15 There his campaign halted. Unable to take Phraaspa, Antonius now found himself exposed on the plain outside the city. The Parthians soon came to the aid of Artavsades holed up in his city.16 They attacked Antonius’ supply train and, when rations were cut, his own soldiers mutinied. His fair-weather ally, Artavasdes I of Armenia, deserted him. Undaunted, in October that year Antonius demanded that the Parthians return the eagle standards and the Roman prisoners they had taken. The Parthians refused and replied that they would only permit him to leave the region unmolested. Without leverage, Antonius could do no more than accept the terms and ordered his army to head back to Syria. Before departing, he received a tip-off that he should expect an ambush and to avoid it he decided to take a route over the mountains. He was pursued by the Parthians and through twenty-five brutally harsh days Antonius struggled to lead his men to safety – Livy says he covered 450km (300 miles) in just twenty-one days.17 After withering attacks he finally reached Antiocheia on the Orontes in Syria. The failed campaign had come at terrible cost: 20,000 of the infantry and 4,000 of the cavalry had perished, not all at the hands of the enemy, but more than half by disease.18 They had, indeed, marched twenty-seven days from Phraaspa, and had defeated the Parthians in eighteen battles, but their victories were not complete or lasting because the missions they had pursued were ineffectual and short-term in outlook.
The following year Octavia brought from Italy several cohorts of cavalry to Greece to assist her husband, but at Athens she was told to proceed no further and remain there.19 Octavia understood completely what was afoot, and despite the personal hurt it caused her, nevertheless wrote to Antonius asking which of the many things she had with her should she bring to him. Anticipating her husband’s needs she was bringing clothing for his soldiers, pack animals, money and gifts for the officers and his friends, and in addition, 2,000 hand-picked, fully equipped men of the Praetorian Cohorts.20 Antonius’ political and romantic interests, however, now lay in Alexandria. A key financial backer of his wars was Queen Kleopatra of Egypt. He had met her for the first time in 47 BCE when Iulius Caesar backed her claim and, after the Alexandrine War, put the then 22-year-old woman on the throne. Caesar was famously seduced by her sensual charms and sharp intellect and she bore him a son she named Caesarion. In 41 BCE Antonius had summoned the queen to be with him at Tarsus. ‘And when she arrived,’ writes Plutarch, ‘he made her a present of no slight or insignificant addition to her dominions, namely, Phoenicia, Coele Syria, Cyprus, and a large part of Cilicia; and still further, the balsam-producing part of Iudaea, and all that part of Arabia Nabataea which slopes toward the outer sea’.21 He joined her in Egypt later that year. The two eloped and a romance blossomed between the couple – and soon there were children. Despite being married to Caesar’s own sister Octavia, Antonius proceeded to marry Kleopatra in 36 BCE. His reason for doing so was to legitimize his children by the queen, the twins Alexander Helios and Kleopatra Selene; but it seemed to some observers that he was creating a new, rival empire to Rome’s, encompassing Egypt, Asia, Greece and the Near East.
Unfazed by his military setback, Antonius raised a new army. Failing to find willing Italian-born citizen recruits, he changed the enrollment rules, offering citizenship to any male willing to serve in his ranks and succeeded in creating five new legions. Antonius was elected consul with L. Scribonius Libo for 34 BCE, resigning it on the same day. He headed north and re-invaded Armenia as revenge for what he saw as Artavasdes’ treachery.22 Under the pretence of marching to war against Parthia, he arrived at the Armenian capital Artaxata and deposed the king.23 The Armenians resisted and elected the king’s son Artaxes. Antonius refused to accept the choice of new regent, arrested him and installed Artaxias, his half-brother, under the control of Canidius Cassius’ and a large contingent of Roman troops.24 Elated by his success, Antonius headed back to Alexandria where he celebrated a triumphal parade. It was the first to be held outside Rome and was seen by many at home as both against the laws of Romans and of Jove. Artavasdes and his family were among the trophies exhibited in the lavish spectacle in which Antonius dressed as Dionysos, wearing an ivy wreath upon his head, a gaudy saffron robe of gold and clasping a thyrsus (the sacred wand of the god) while Kleopatra accompanied him in the guise of Isis.25
Controversially, a few days after the parade, Antonius reassigned several of the Roman protectorates in the East to members of his new family in what became known as the Donations of Alexandria.26 It is reported that ‘he used to say that the greatness of the Roman empire was made manifest, not by what the Romans received, but by what they bestowed; and that noble families were extended by the successive begettings of many kings’.27 He added, ‘in this way, at any rate, his own progenitor was begotten by Herakles, who did not confine his succession to a single womb, nor stand in awe of laws like Solon’s for the regulation of conception, but gave free course to nature, and left behind him the beginnings and foundations of many families’.28 The distributions of land were accompanied by an excessive spectacle of lavish sets and flamboyant costumes.29 The 13-year-old Caesarion, now bearing the majestic Egyptian name Ptolemaeus XIV Philopator Philomētor Caesar, was recognized as co-regent of Egypt and Iulius Caesar’s legitimate son and heir.30 Cyprus, Coele-Syria and Libya were given to the pharoahs, while Armenia, Media (following its annexation) and Parthia reaching as far as India were created as new realms for Kleopatra’s eldest son, the 6-year-old Alexander Helios. His twin sister, Kleopatra Selene, received Crete and Cyrenaica. To the youngest son, the 2-year-old Ptolemaeus Philadelphus, was granted Cilicia, Phoenecia and Syria. Antonius was within his legal remit to make such settlements as these were not fully-fledged Roman provinces.31 Indeed, he sent official documents for the transfers to the Senate in Rome to ratify his decision. The response there was consternation. ‘He was hated, too,’ writes Plutarch, ‘for the distribution which he made to his children in Alexandria; it was seen to be theatrical and arrogant, and to evince hatred of Rome.’32 His recognition of Caesarion as ‘King of Kings’ and as Iulius Caesar’s true heir by blood, however, was seemingly calculated to antagonize one man in particular: his former co-triumvir and the man claiming to be ‘Son of the Divine Iulius’.
The timing and presentation of the request were poor – and it played right into Caesar’s hands.33 He used the material to present Antonius as a drunken, debauched playboy who was failing to live up to the high standards expected of a Roman proconsul. From his lodgings in Alexandria Antonius hit back at the accusations with charges of his own.34 Caesar had not given him his share of Sicily after it had been taken from Sex. Pompeius. Caesar had not returned the ships he had been loaned. Caesar had kept Lepidus’ army for himself, along with the territory and cash it generated. And his allotments of land to the veterans had excluded his troops. Imperator Caesar shot back a barbed retort that:
he had deposed Lepidus from office because he was abusing it, and as for what he had acquired in war, he would share it with Antonius whenever Antonius, on his part, should share Armenia with him; and Antonius’ soldiers had no claim upon Italy, since they had Media and Persia, which countries they had added to the Roman dominion by their noble struggles under their imperator.35
It was hard to see how the two men could now be reconciled.
In the spring of 33 BCE, while Caesar was campaigning in Illyricum and Agrippa was supervising miracles of hydraulic engineering in Rome, Antonius returned to Roman-controlled Armenia. He had learned that King Artavasdes of Media Atropatene had quarrelled with his Parthian neighbour.36 The rift provided Antonius with the unexpected, but timely, opportunity for an alliance. Antonius marched to the Araxes (Aras) River. A treaty was signed to the satisfaction of both sides, in which each would come to the support of the other in time of need. To bind the two men together, the king’s daughter, Iotape, was betrothed to Antonius’ son, Alexander Helios.37 To Polemon I of Pontus, a client king – whose father Zenon had encouraged the local people to resist Q. Labienus and King Pacorus I of Parthia when their armies invaded Syria and Anatolia – he gave orders to police the Roman frontier with Parthia.38 Antonius’ attention was turning westwards. A war between the two strong men of the Roman world, and one which would decide its fate, was now inevitable. With the eastern border at peace – even if fragile – in November Antonius ordered his deputy P. Canidius Crassus to withdraw the sixteen legions from Armenia and march to the coast in preparation for the coming conflict with Caesar.39
Antonius sailed with Kleopatra – now his greatest sponsor, providing him men, horses and ships – to Ephesus for ‘it was there that his naval force was coming together from all quarters, 800 ships of war with merchant vessels, of which Kleopatra furnished 200, besides 20,000 talents, and supplies for the whole army during the war’.40 In the arms race for the coming civil war, Antonius was far ahead of Caesar. Without having made adequate preparations and lacking many essential supplies, Imperator Caesar feared being forced to fight that summer.41 To raise cash needed to pay for the men and matériel he needed he compelled the citizens to pay a quarter of their income and the freedmen one eighth of their property. Both classes protested vehemently against Caesar. Riots broke out across Italy. He now risked losing the political capital he and Agrippa had so carefully built up over the previous two years. Then, quite unexpectedly, Antonius failed to make the first move. With the benefit of hindsight, ‘among the greatest mistakes of Antonius, men reckon his postponement of the war,’ writes Plutarch, ‘for it gave Caesar time to make preparations and put an end to the disturbances among the people’.42 There were defections among Antonius’ friends too. Claiming that he had been coldly treated by Antonius on account of unmistakable evidence of his venal rapacity, proconsul L. Munatius Plancus switched sides and brought with him slanderous gossip that Caesar was quick to broadcast; he was soon joined by his uncle M. Titius.43 They informed him of the contents of Antonius’ will and testament. Though supposedly held in the care of the Vestal Virgins, who were sworn to keep it secret until Antonius’ death, by some means fair or foul Caesar managed to get a copy – or convinced those that needed to be that he had one. He studied it, identified its most damning clauses, and brought them before the Senate.44 To the sober Conscript Fathers Antonius was revealed to be subservient to the queen. They were told how he had rubbed her feet at a banquet in full view of the guests. He had abandoned a court case mid-trial to wander off and join her entourage. He had lavished expensive gifts on her, including the Library at Pergamum and its collection of 200,000 books. Most shocking was the stipulation that after a public funeral in the Forum at Rome, his body should be returned to Kleopatra for burial in Egypt.45 Other truths, half-truths, rumours and falsehoods from second and third-hand sources were woven into the oration to show how Antonius had allowed himself to shamefully pander to his Egyptian mistress – he had become ‘a captive to his love for Kleopatra’, in Florus’ words – and to neglect his duties as an official of the Roman state.46 Scandalous was that Antonius already had a Roman wife – and not any woman, but the sister of his fellow triumvir.
The two triumvirs accused each other openly and publicly. Antonius repeated his charged that Caesar had removed Lepidus unlawfully, and the territory and troops taken from the former triumvir, as well as the troops he had confiscated from Sex. Pompeius, which should have been shared between them, and he demanded his half.47 Caesar retorted that Antonius was holding Egypt and the other nations without due process of assigning them by lot, that he had killed Sextus – whom he himself had willingly spared – and the way he had treated the king of Armenia had brought the dignity of the Roman People into disrepute.48 Then he demanded half the spoils of war. Above all he reproached him for the children he had sired with Kleopatra, the gifts he had lavished upon them, and particular, because he was calling the boy Caesarion and bringing him into the family of Caesar.49
Yet, Antonius still had supporters in Rome, and crucially many were in the Senate. On New Year’s Day 32 BCE the new consuls, Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus and C. Sosius, stood steadfast with their maligned friend; but while Ahenobarbus refrained from speaking out against Caesar, Sosius made a very personal attack against him.50 Caesar, however, was not there to hear them. Fully expecting the accusations, he had wisely stayed away from Rome with Agrippa at his side. When the resulting unfavourable legislation limiting Caesar’s powers finally came up for the vote, he quietly arranged for the sympathetic tribune Nonius Balbus to veto it.51 Returning to the city, Imperator Caesar convened the Senate and surrounded himself menacingly with loyal troops who wore concealed daggers; their hobnailed caligae revealed them as military.52 He sat himself provocatively on an official chair with the consuls. Caesar then proceeded to defend his actions at length, but in moderate language, and to bring accusations against Antonius and Sosius, promising at the next meeting of the Senate to produce documents which would irrefutably support his allegations against them.53 Caesar declared that anyone feeling insecure in the city was at complete liberty to leave and join Antonius.54 Many took the cue. This was the moment a large contingent of Antonius’ supporters left – some 200 of the 900 senators fled Rome for the perceived safety of the Egyptian capital to join their leader. Ahenobarbus and Sosius were among them.55 Caesar promptly replaced them with two suffect consuls, L. Cornelius Cinna and M. Valerius Messalla, both sympathetic to his cause.56 While the exiles assembled and declared themselves the legitimate Senate, things did not all go Antonius’ way. On Samos, he and his Egyptian consort received an assembly of client kings, among them Herodes. Another unexpected guest was Artavasdes of Media Atropatene. It transpired that having withdrawn the legions from neighbouring Armenia, there were no Roman troops available to save him from an attack by Phraates (Frahâta) IV.57 Ousted from his own kingdom, he sought sanctuary with Antonius on the Greek island.
During the summer of that year Antonius finally – and unceremoniously – divorced Octavia.58 His callousness contrasted with her consideration. Even as his agents presented the letter demanding that she leave his house in Rome, ‘she was in tears of distress that she herself also would be regarded as one of the causes of the war’.59 Again, he had misjudged the mood of the Roman people. They ‘felt pity for Antonius, not for her, and especially those who had seen Kleopatra and knew that neither in youthfulness nor beauty was she superior to Octavia.’60 A dutiful Roman lady, she left the domus Antonia taking all his children with her except M. Antonius Antyllus, his eldest son by Fulvia, who was already with his father. When Antonius and Kleopatra arrived in Athens he insisted that his new wife should receive the same honours Octavia had been accorded. Whenever she spoke, he listened, agreeing with her on many important matters, even against his own instinct and better judgment.61 If he had thought there would be strength in numbers, with the Egyptian regent present among them, relations between his Roman supporters soon became strained. When Antonius proposed to attack Italy, she persuaded him not to, but in doing so he upset several of the senators in exile and many of his officers too.
Imperator Caesar was now ready to do battle; Agrippa awaited his orders. Due process required that a formal declaration of war had to be agreed in the Roman Senate and ratified by the Popular Assembly. Caesar was extremely careful to position the coming struggle, not as a fight against the wayward Roman, but as a war against the foreign seductress. In the latter part of 32 BCE ‘a vote was passed to wage war against Kleopatra, and to take away from Antonius the authority which he had surrendered to a woman’.62 This last point about her gender was very important: she had publicly humiliated a Roman. To stress the culpability of the Egyptian, he added ‘that Antonius had been drugged and was not even master of himself, and that the Romans were carrying on war with Mardion the eunuch, and Potheinus, and Iras, and the tire-woman of Kleopatra, and Charmion, by whom the principal affairs of the government were managed’.63 The Egyptian queen had demanded the Roman Empire from the besotted, drunken commander as payment for her favours.64 To lend gravity to the declaration, Caesar invoked the ancient rite of declaring war in which a fetial priest struck a spear into a patch of ground regarded as token foreign soil at the Temple of Bellona – doing it there saved on the time and expense of delivering the message to the queen in person.65 ‘These proceedings,’ writes Dio, ‘were nominally directed against Kleopatra, but really against Antonius.’66 According to Caesar’s own account, this year, to bind the nation all of the communities of Italy were required to take an oath of loyalty (Iuratio Italiae) to him – all except Antonius’ hereditary family clients living in Bononia.67 The Actian War (Bellum Actiense) had begun.
While the Roman world fractured in two halves as men were forced to pick sides, Agrippa’s own family suffered a deep rent that year. His father-in-law, T. Pomponius Atticus, had had no serious illness for the last three decades.68 Now 77-years-old, he had developed an intestinal condition his doctors could not identify, even after ‘a putrid ulcer broke out through his loins’.69 He urgently sent for Agrippa to be at his side at his house in Rome, along with L. Cornelius Balbus and Sex. Peducaeus. He explained to them that, seeing no possibility for recovery, he could no longer continue if it meant living with the excruciating pain which daily grew worse.70 He had decided to end his life through starvation. Cornelius Nepos describes Agrippa’s reaction to the news:
Having delivered this address with so much steadiness of voice and countenance, that he seemed to be removing, not out of life, but out of one house into another – when Agrippa, weeping over him and kissing him, entreated and conjured him ‘not to accelerate that which nature herself would bring, and, since he might live some time longer, to preserve his life for himself and his friends’ – he put a stop to his prayers, by an obstinate silence.71
After stubbornly refusing food for two days, the fever broke. Apparently showing signs of recovery, Atticus nevertheless continued his fast for three more days. On 31 March 32 BCE he died.72 Though wealthy, his funeral was modest. ‘His body was carried out of his house on a small couch, as he himself had directed,’ writes Cornelius Nepos, ‘without any funereal pomp, all the respectable portion of the people attending, and a vast crowd of the populace.’73 His ashes were placed in the sepulchre of his uncle Q. Caecilius on the Via Appia at the fifth milestone from the city. Agrippa had lost a much loved relation, a well-connected friend and a wise confidant.
Setting personal grief aside, Agrippa now took on the most important military leadership role of his life. In the closing months of 32 BCE Caesar placed Agrippa in charge of all military operations.74 News had arrived that Antonius had stationed his troops in many towns and shore forts along the western coast of Greece as far as Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthiensis (modern Corinth), and moved his fleet and land army to Kerkyra (Corfu) – the westernmost Greek island.75 The move could have been defensive, but just as likely it suggests Antonius still had the intention of a surprise invasion of Italy before his opponent could respond, despite Kleopatra having already rejected the idea. Antonius represented a clear and present threat. Agrippa immediately despatched a small flotilla across the Adriatic Sea to reconnoitre Antonius’ forces (map 7). It seems Agrippa was spotted first. Off the Caraunian Mountains Antonius’ scouts spied the arrival of Agrippa’s ships. Thinking these were the vanguard of Caesar’s main fleet, Antonius advanced no further, but decided to return to the Peloponnese, setting up his winter quarters at Patrae (modern Patras).76 Orosius states that Agrippa captured Kerkyra and ‘then pursued and routed the fugitives in a naval battle, and finally, after accomplishing many acts of the utmost cruelty, came back to Caesar’.77
Over the ensuing months Agrippa aggressively patrolled the Ionian Sea for prey and successfully intercepted many slow moving transports bringing Antonius foodstuffs and munitions from Asia, Egypt and Syria and captured or sank them.78 He landed an army at Methone (modern Methoni), a coastal town with strong defences built in the fourth century BCE on the southwestern-most tip of the Peloponnese. In charge of the stronghold was one of Antonius’ allies, Bogudes, king of Mauretania. In a surprise attack Agrippa laid siege, the place soon fell and he had Bogudes executed.79 Another of Antonius’ bases on the Peloponnese taken out of the war, Agrippa headed north again, looking out for merchant ships on the way and raiding Greek coastal settlements at will – all of which disturbed Antonius greatly.80
The news of Agrippa’s successful hunter strategy, of course, greatly heartened Caesar. Leaving Rome in the care of his trusted representative Maecenas, he relocated to Brundisium where he gathered together his supporters to impress upon them that he had the largest and strongest constituency among the Romans sympathetic to his cause.81 Caesar had assembled the bulk of his army and navy at Brundisium and Tarentum, and in the spring of 31 BCE they crossed the Adriatic Sea to Kerkyra unopposed – he intended to reach Actium, but a storm blew up preventing him from landing there.82 Having regrouped, Caesar gave the order for his main force and his supporters to make the sea crossing to Actium where he hoped to capture Antonius’ fleet.83 En route, finding Korkyra to be abandoned, he occupied the city, anchoring his ships in the Fresh Water Harbour, and made it the base of his own naval operations. From it, Caesar launched reconnaissance missions.84