Battle of Actium


The Battle of Actium was the main conflict in the Roman civil war between the forces supporting Octavian and those supporting Mark Antony. It was fought on September 2, 31 BC, on the Ionian Sea near the Roman colony of Actium in Greece (near the modern-day city of Preveza). Octavian's fleet was commanded by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Antony's fleet was supported by the fleet of his lover, Cleopatra VII, queen of Ptolemaic Egypt. The victory of Octavian's fleet enabled him to consolidate his power over Rome and its domains, leading to his adoption of the title of Princeps ("first citizen") and accepting the title of Augustus from the Senate. As Augustus Caesar, he would preserve the trappings of a restored Republic, but historians generally mark his consolidation of power and the adoption of his honorifics flowing from his victory at Actium as the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire.