S8 Ep624: 5. Marcus Agrippa serves as the logistical mastermind behind Octavian’s strategy leading to the Battle of Actium. While Antony and Cleopatra wait in western Greece, Agrippa launches a daring, pre-dawn amphibious assault on Methone, a vital supply base. Th
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2026
⏱️ 10 minutes
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Summary
5. Marcus Agrippa serves as the logistical mastermind behind Octavian’s strategy leading to the Battle of Actium. While Antony and Cleopatra wait in western Greece, Agrippa launches a daring, pre-dawn amphibious assault on Methone, a vital supply base. This surprise victory effectively cuts Antony’s supply lines from Egypt. Octavian then strikes the northern coast, pinning Antony’s fleet into the bay at Actium. Strauss emphasizes that while tactics are for amateurs, Agrippa’s focus on logistics crippled Antony’s forces—who were already suffering from disease and hunger—well before the main naval engagement began. (5)
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| 0:42.7 | This is CBS Eye on the World. |
| 0:44.7 | Here's John Batchelor. |
| 0:47.9 | The War that made the Roman Empire, |
| 0:51.1 | Anthony Cleopatra and Octavian at Actium. |
| 0:53.5 | Professor Barry Strauss is the author. |
| 0:56.8 | He's the Beaumar Chair of Humanistic Studies at Cornell University, |
| 1:03.6 | the distinguished classicist of several books in this period for those of us who do not have the Latin or the Greek. |
| 1:14.2 | It's a 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. |
| 1:20.7 | 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. |
| 1:27.0 | And what you're about to hear is Barry Strauss's explication. Tactics are for amateurs, logistics are for professionals. |
| 1:34.6 | And what you're about to hear is Barry Strauss's explication of how Octavian defeated Antony because he had a logistical genius named Marcus Agrippa. |
| 1:39.1 | Barry, thank you very much. |
| 1:41.0 | We need to do a little geography. |
| 1:42.9 | Why did the vast Ptolemaic fleet built by Cleopatra's treasury? |
| 1:52.0 | Cleopatra and Anthony Leading. They went from Ephesus to Patre to the western coasts of Greece. Why? What did that mean for their logistics? |
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