8/8: Octavian the supremely successful and sly despot: 8/8: The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium by Barry Strauss
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
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🗓️ 4 February 2023
⏱️ 7 minutes
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8/8: Octavian the supremely successful and sly despot: 8/8: The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium by Barry Strauss
The Battle of Actium had great consequences for the empire. Had Antony and Cleopatra won, the empire’s capital might have moved from Rome to Alexandria, Cleopatra’s capital, and Latin might have become the empire’s second language after Greek, which was spoken throughout the eastern Mediterranean, including Egypt.
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| 0:57.7 | The best sister Octavia. |
| 0:59.7 | Alexandria is the marble wonder of the world, the richest, the best library, the best physicians, |
| 1:07.9 | the people are rich and spectacular and very cunning and and and have vicious wits. |
| 1:14.4 | However, Rome is going to be the center of Octavian's empire. |
| 1:18.7 | So Octavian has to build this slowly over many years and we're going to race ahead to |
| 1:25.1 | when he becomes Augustus in 27, 27 is a 27, 27 BC. |
| 1:32.0 | Why does he take the name Augustus? |
| 1:33.9 | What does that mean for his ambitions? |
| 1:36.2 | So Octavian is a very cunning guy and he knows that his great uncle, Julius Caesar, failed |
| 1:41.1 | because he made himself a dictator in perpetuity and because people suspected that he wanted |
| 1:47.0 | to be a king and he behaved in ways that allowed people to have this suspicion. |
| 1:52.4 | Octavian is much more subtle. |
| 1:54.8 | When he learns from these mistakes, he doesn't want to be a dictator. |
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