This is

I on the world. I'm John Bachelor with Professor Barry Strauss.

His new book is The War that Made the Roman Empire,

Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium.

We have the three players, Octavian who is adopted by Julius Caesar before his death and is the heir apparent except Antony, who is Caesar's right-hand man lieutenant ambition and in the triumvirate with

Lepidus and Octavian and Antony.

Antony has the richest portion of the empire. The treasuries pour in not only all of the treasuries of what is now Syria, what is now Israel, what is now Iraq, Iran, Turkey, all of that pouring in Armenia, pouring into Antony's possession

if he puts in the right rulers, he has to conquer pieces of it.

Remember, Caesar was on his way to conquer Parthia upon the time of his death. However, he also has Cleopatra's

Treasury and we now enter into a period that is very dynamic because Octavian's plans include the fact that

he's got to have better information. Antony's out of his reach. So we introduce

another heroine into this who will triumph quite secretly

for all these centuries. Her name is Octavia. What do we need to know about her bearing?

Okay, so Octavia is the older sister of Octavian.

They have the same parents and they always were close to these two kids.

She had been married to a Roman politician named Marcellus.

He started out as an opponent of Julius Caesar, a dogged opponent of Julius Caesar, and then somehow mysteriously he switched

allegiances to Caesar's side. Perhaps his wife, Octavia, had something do with

with it. Anyhow, he died, she was a widow. And around the same time Antony was widowed, his

Roman wife, Folvia, also died, never mind his mistress Cleopatra, and Anthony and Octavian almost

come to blows in the year

40 but they make a peace treaty to make an agreement and to seal the deal they agree that

...