In 30 B.C., Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII died by suicide after they have been defeated by Octavian’s forces in a civil battle.
However what if Antony and Cleopatra had defeated Octavian, the person who grew to become Rome’s first emperor? Would they’ve grow to be rulers of Rome? How would historical past have been completely different?
Civil battle
First, it helps to grasp what led to the battle. Within the aftermath of Julius Caesar’s assassination in 44 B.C., three main factions fought for energy: Octavian, Caesar’s great-nephew, adopted son and inheritor; Mark Antony, certainly one of Caesar’s generals; and Brutus and Cassius, each senators. Nonetheless, the senators have been quickly defeated and died by suicide.
Earlier than Caesar died, he had a relationship with Cleopatra VII, the ruler of Egypt. Cleopatra had a son named Caesarion whom she claimed was fathered by Caesar. However he by no means acknowledged the boy as his son. After Caesar died, Cleopatra and Antony grew to become a pair and had three youngsters, though they probably did not formally marry.
Throughout this time, there had been an uneasy power-sharing settlement between Octavian, who was primarily based in Rome, and Antony, who was primarily based in Alexandria. However then, civil battle for management of Rome and its territories erupted in 32 B.C.
The turning level within the civil battle was the Battle of Actium, which occurred on Sept. 2, 31 B.C. Throughout this battle, the fleet of Antony and Cleopatra was destroyed, and Octavian gained management of the Mediterranean Sea. Whereas additional battles occurred on land, Antony and Cleopatra’s forces couldn’t get well from the lack of their fleet.
Cleopatra and Antony died in 30 B.C., and Egypt was included into the Roman Empire as a province in 30 B.C. Quickly after, in 27 B.C., the Roman senate gave Octavian the title “Augustus,” and he grew to become the primary emperor of the Roman Empire.
However what may need occurred if the lovers had triumphed over Octavian?
Cleopatra restricted?
There are a variety of potentialities on this “what if” situation, students stated.
One risk is that Cleopatra’s energy would have been restricted to Egypt and elements of the Center East. Some students stated Cleopatra would have had a tough time enjoying a big position within the Everlasting Metropolis. “I do not see a job for Cleopatra in Rome,” Jeffrey Tatum, a professor of classics at Victoria College of Wellington in New Zealand, advised Dwell Science in an e-mail, noting that Octavian’s supporters had used propaganda to villainize Cleopatra.
Lee Fratantuono, a professor of historic classics at Maynooth College in Eire, agreed, noting Cleopatra, who was an Egyptian ruler of Macedonian descent, wouldn’t have been accepted by the individuals of Rome. “Her presence at his aspect roused patriotic sentiment in Italy, and it’s extremely unlikely that Antony might have achieved long-term success within the central and western Mediterranean together with her prominently within the image,” he advised Dwell Science in an e-mail.
Antony had sons and stepsons from his earlier marriages, and he may need tried to insert them into energy in Rome as an alternative of himself. Antony “had what Octavian didn’t — an abundance of kids and stepchildren, particularly male ones, that he might utilise,” Jane Draycott, a senior lecturer of classics on the College of Glasgow, advised Dwell Science in an e-mail.
Antony and Cleopatra, together with their youngsters, could have been extra targeted on Egypt and the Close to East, the place the Romans confronted a formidable opponent within the Parthian Empire in what’s now largely Iran. Antony could have wished to spend his time combating them fairly than making an attempt to control Rome itself, Draycott stated.
Cleopatra as queen?
One other risk is that regardless of opposition to Cleopatra, she might have nonetheless come to energy in Rome, ruling alongside Antony, who would have grow to be an emperor, Prudence Jones, a classics professor at Montclair State College in New Jersey, stated in an e-mail.
If they’d achieved this, “we would count on to see better steadiness between the jap and western elements of Rome’s empire,” Jones stated, as Egypt was an necessary a part of the jap a part of the empire.
“If energy have been extra balanced between the jap and western elements of the empire, fairly than having energy centralized at Rome, European historical past might look fairly completely different,” Jones advised Dwell Science. “Western Europe may need remained rural for an extended time period with a lesser diploma of Romanization, significantly in Gaul and Britain if extra assets had been directed eastward. Greek tradition may need had extra of an affect on all of Europe, with maybe fewer Romance languages and extra fashionable languages associated to Greek.”
Egypt may “have retained a level of independence and functioned as a consumer kingdom,” Jones stated. Maybe Antony would have prevented centralizing the Roman Empire’s authorities to the diploma Octavian did.
We “cannot assume that Antony would have had Octavian’s want for and ability in creating forms,” Jones stated. “With much less central management, the Roman Empire may need been extra of a Greco-Romano-Egyptian confederation.”
Giving it again to the senate?
One other risk is that fairly than attempt to management Rome himself or via his sons and stepsons, Antony may need handed town and a few of its territories again to the senate and saved Rome as a republic, Tatum stated.
It is potential that “he would have handed the republic again to the senate and the assemblies,” Tatum wrote in his e-book “A Noble Destroy: Mark Antony, Civil Warfare, and the Collapse of the Roman Republic” (Oxford College Press, 2023). “Relishing his wealth and status from a distance, even perhaps from Alexandria, he might have exercised affect with out dominating affairs and altering the elemental nature of the republic.”
It is also potential that no matter selections Antony and Cleopatra made might have triggered one other civil battle with different aristocrats battling for management of Rome and its territories, Tatum stated in an e-mail.
