How Did Octavian Beat Mark Antony and Cleopatra? The Battle of Actium Explained

Mark Antony and Cleopatra on one side... Octavian and his brilliant general on the other. It's one of the most riveting, decisive and climatic moments in ancient history... and yet still such a mystery.

How was it that Cleopatra and Mark Antony were defeated... when they had much larger forces? What were the pivotal - never discussed - moments beforehand that gave Octavian the upper hand?

And what really happened that fateful day when Mark Antony's ships simply didn't set sail?

Discover the gripping story of one of history’s most important wars, the campaign culminating in the Battle of Actium in 31 BC... the war that made the Roman Empire.

Featuring Cornell Classics Professor Barry Strauss, naval warfare expert William M. Murray and famed Egyptologist Kara Cooney, moderated by Anya Leonard, founder and director of Classical Wisdom.

Help support the classics! Find out more about Classical Wisdom and the work we are doing at our new location: https://classicalwisdom.substack.com/


About the Speakers:

Barry Strauss is the Professor of History and Classics, Bryce and Edith M. Bowmar Professor in Humanistic Studies at Cornell University, specializing as a military and naval historian. Barry is also the visiting Corliss Dean Page Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Series Editor of Princeton’s Turning Points in Ancient History, an author of many bestselling books, including: The Death of Caesar, Ten Caesars and most recently, ˆˆThe War that Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra and Octavian at Actium.

Dr. Kathlyn (Kara) Cooney is a professor of Egyptian Art and Architecture at UCLA. Specializing in craft production, coffin studies, and economies in the ancient world, Cooney received her PhD in Egyptology from Johns Hopkins University. In 2005, she was co-curator of Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Cooney produced a comparative archaeology television series, entitled Out of Egypt, which aired in 2009 on the Discovery Channel and is available online via Netflix and Amazon.

William M. Murray is the Mary and Gus Stathis Professor of Greek History at the University of South Florida. His interests include all aspects of ancient seafaring from ships and their designs to trade, ancient harbors, naval warfare and weaponry. Over the past 40 years, he has worked at archaeological sites, both underwater and on land, in Greece, Israel, Turkey, France and Italy. He is currently a member of the Egadi Island Survey Project recovering ancient warship rams and other battle debris from the last naval battle of the First Punic War (241 BC) and is also preparing, with others, the final publication of excavations conducted at Augustus’ Victory Monument near Nicopolis in Greece.

Moderated by Anya Leonard, founder and director of Classical Wisdom, a site dedicated to bringing ancient wisdom to modern minds.