This is CBS Eye on the World.

Here's John Bachelor.

The war that made the Roman Empire, Antony Cleopatra and Octavian, at Actium.

Professor Barry Strauss is the author. He's the Beaumard Chair of Humanistic Studies at Cornell University.

The distinguished class of systems, several books in this period for those of us who do not have the Latin or the Greek,

the great treat to speak with Barry about a battle that I did not know to solve before this book, Actium.

It's understood as a naval battle. Well, sort of. It's also a battle of maneuver.

And it teaches the lesson again and again. We get in the 20th and the 21st century.

Tactics are for amateurs, logistics are for professionals.

And what you're about to hear is Barry Strauss' explication of how Octavian defeated Antony because he had a logistical genius named Marcus Agrippa.

Barry, thank you very much. We need to do a little geography. Why did the vast telemetric fleet built by Cleopatra's treasury, Cleopatra and Antony leading?

They went from Ephesus to Patre to the Western coast of Greece. Why? What did that mean for their logistics?

Well, it was the jumping off point for invading Italy. It also effectively closed off Italy from the east because you needed to sail along the west coast of Greece, if you wanted to get from Italy to the east because the east coast of Italy is very treacherous and has almost no harbours.

I think originally the plan was to invade southern Italy. It would have been a very difficult thing to do. And in terms of propaganda, it would have been very tough with Cleopatra along with them.

But they built a fleet. They built an invasion fleet. And so if anyone could have done it, their fleet could have done it.

Antony and Cleopatra decide to stay in Western Greece and not invade. They decide to wait for the enemy to come to them and then defeat the enemy in Western Greece. Why they made that decision? We don't know.

But Cleopatra didn't want to risk her own naval contingent of 60 ships and risk losing the route eastward to Egypt. Is it because Antony lost his nerve because he had been burned in his campaign against Parthia?

Is it because they thought that Cleopatra was just too much of a propaganda negative to invade Italy? We're not sure. But there they are on the west coast of Greece waiting for the enemy to come.

The west coast of Greece then is set up for them to launch an invasion fleet. So I think of it as the southern coast of England set up for the invasion fleet to our Normandy.

That's right. And it's as if Eisenhower decided to wait for the Germans. It's very strange.

It's very strange and it's very on Caesar. Julius Caesar was all about taking strategic risks. And they hadn't.

And perhaps they were planning to invade Italy and never got around to it. The sources are very pro Augustus. So we're not sure about it. But I have to admit that is reading a lot into the sources that's not there to come to that conclusion.

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