Love, Betrayal, and the Battle for Rome
HISTORY This Week
The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios
4.5 • 4.2K Ratings
🗓️ 29 August 2022
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
September 2, 31 BCE. Two camps prepare for battle off the coast of Greece. On one side is Octavian, Julius Caesar’s heir apparent. On the other, Marc Antony and his lover, the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. This battle won’t just determine the leader of Rome, but the fate of global civilization. How did Cleopatra wind up in the middle of a Roman game of tug of war? And how did the Battle of Actium change our world forever?
Special thanks to our guest, Barry Strauss, author of The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The History Channel, Original Podcast. |
| 0:04.3 | History this week, September 2nd, 31 BCE. |
| 0:13.2 | I'm Sally Helm. |
| 0:17.6 | These Roman sailors know the wind. |
| 0:21.2 | They have to. |
| 0:22.7 | Even in times of peace, the direction and the strength of the wind |
| 0:26.3 | are important for farming and for trading. |
| 0:28.7 | And in times of war, wind can be the difference between life and death. |
| 0:35.2 | For the past four days in the Embration Gulf, the wind has been strong. |
| 0:41.4 | Here off the west coast of Greece and across the sea from the foot of Italy, |
| 0:46.0 | the wind has been turning the water, moving it every which way, |
| 0:49.7 | conditions that make it impossible for warships to maneuver with precision. |
| 0:53.6 | But today, finally, the wind has calmed, which means it's time for a battle, |
| 1:02.4 | one that will determine the future of Rome. |
| 1:06.1 | In two opposing camps, the men have been awake since well before dawn, preparing to fight. |
| 1:13.0 | In the Highlands, overlooking the Bay is one leader, the young Octavian. |
| 1:17.7 | And down in the sandy swampy flatlands of Actium, |
| 1:21.5 | is his former ally, Marc Antony. |
| 1:24.9 | Each of them hopes that by the end of this war, he'll be the leader of Rome, |
| 1:28.8 | and the other man will be dead. |
| 1:32.0 | But technically, Octavian is not actually at war with Antony. |
| 1:36.4 | He's at war with Antony's lover, the famous Egyptian queen, Cleopatra. |
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