Welcome to Combat Story. I'm Ryan Fugid and I serve Warzone Tours as an Army attack helicopter pilot and CIA officer over a 15-year career.

I'm fascinated by the experiences of the elite in combat. On this show, I interview some of the best to understand what combat felt like on their frontlines. This is Combat Story.

Today we take a historical look at the Battle of Actium, a huge naval battle off the coast of Greece that determined the future of what we now know as the Roman Empire.

We welcome Cornell University's Professor Barry Strauss back to the podcast to bring another epic battle to life.

Listeners will remember him from our deep dive into the life of the well-known Spartan warrior, Bracidus.

This particular battle at Actium and lead up to it involves some of the iconic names we've all heard from history, like Cleopatra, Mark Anthony, Octavian Caesar and Julius Caesar.

We also learn about Rome's most decorated naval commander, Admiral Agrippa and how he defeats a numerically superior force at sea.

Barry's newest book, The War that made the Roman Empire, brings this battle and the personalities to life.

Those who appreciate our combat stories will enjoy hearing how battles were fought on the open sea at this time and some of the tactics that each side had to use.

While some of those tactics have changed, the overarching military, political and diplomatic strategies have not, to include the use of information warfare.

And you'll see several similarities to what's going on in Ukraine today.

I hope you enjoyed this combat story from history as much as I did.

Barry, thanks for coming back and sharing yet another interesting historical story with us today.

Ryan, thanks for having me back. It's great to be here.

So we're going to dive in to what the book that is coming out here soon, The War that made the Roman Empire, Anthony Cleopatra and Octavian at Actium, just so folks can get a look at it.

This is your latest publication that's coming out and we're going to dig into what is a fascinating battle, not just a huge naval battle, but the information operations that lead up to it.

There are huge personalities that are involved the state craft, the espionage, everything. And I think we'll have some parallels to what people are seeing in Ukraine and Russia, which is going off right now for those who watch this in the future, we're at the beginning of what's happening in Ukraine and Russia.

So I would just say Barry, since you were here previously, some of the listeners will know you.

We had an intro for you, obviously, as we kicked off, but if possible, could you share just a little bit more about where you're working and how this book came to be for you as it's one of many publications of yours before we dig in.

Thank you. So I'm at Cornell University where I'm a professor of history and classics.

I'm also a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution in California. And when I wrote this book, I had the good fortune of being a distinguished visiting professor at the Naval Post graduate school in Monterey, California.

And I got to work with a lot of the professionals there and very helpful in my understanding of what was going on.

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