Battle of Actium

“ Deserted by their commander, the captains of Antony's ships continued to resist desperately; nor was it till the greater part of them were set on fire that the contest was decided. Before evening closed, the whole fleet was destroyed; most of the men and all the treasure on board perished. A few days after, when the shameful flight of Antony was made known to his army, all his legions went over to the conqueror.
It was not for eleven months after the battle of Actium that Octavian entered the open gates of Alexandria. ”

“ Octavian remained in Rome, but Antony went to Egypt to be near Cleopatra with whom he too had fallen in love, as seems to have been the habit of Roman generals.
A war broke out between the two. In the battle of Actium, Octavian defeated Antony. Antony killed himself and Cleopatra was left alone to face the enemy. She tried very hard to make Octavian her third Roman conquest. When she saw that she could make no impression upon this very proud aristocrat, she killed herself, and Egypt became a Roman province. ”

“ Other authorities for the events of the campaign and battle of Actium (Dion Cassius, Appian, and Orosius) are silent as to "kings;" but Florus (iv. 11) says that the wind-tossed waters "vomited back" to the shore gold and purple, the spoils of the Arabians and Sabæans, and a thousand other peoples of Asia. ”

“ The army was encamped on the promontory of Actium (Plan, 3) , which has given its name to the battle. The fleet of Octavian consisted of light Liburnian vessels, manned by crews which had gained experience in the wars against Sextus Pompey. It was under the command of the able Agrippa, who took up his station at Corcyra, and swept the Adriatic Sea. Octavian in person took the command of the land forces, which were encamped on the coast of Epirus opposite Actium, on the spot where Nicopolis afterward stood. (Plan, 1.) The generals of Antony strongly urged him to fight on land ”

“ Had he not yielded to the fascinations of Cleopatra, he would probably have been the master of the world. But the sea-fight of Actium, one of the great decisive battles of history, gave the empire of the world to Octavian B.C. 31, and two years after the victor celebrated three magnificent triumphs, after the example of his uncle, for Dalmatia, Actium, and Egypt. The kingdom of the Ptolemies passed under the rule of Caesar. The Temple of Janus was shut, for the first time for more than two hundred years; and the imperial power was peaceably established over the civilized world. ”

“ Actium was one of the decisive battles of the world—the event that fixed the destinies of the Roman Empire for centuries to come, made Octavian its dictator, and enabled him, while keeping the mere forms of Republican life, to inaugurate the imperial system of absolute rule, and reign as the first of the Roman Emperors, under the name and title of Augustus. ”

“ The deserted fleet was not overcome without making a brave resistance. Antony's land forces soon went over to the enemy, and the Roman world fell to Octavianus. In 1538 a victory was gained at Actium by the Turks over the Spanish and Venetian fleets.
Act of God, a legal term defined as "a direct, violent, sudden, and irresistible act of nature, which could not, by any reasonable cause, have been foreseen or resisted". No one can be legally called upon to make good loss so arising. ”

“ Hearing this he thought that by a sudden night attack delivered in force, when the enemy were not expecting it, they could be dislodged and driven back. Javelins and arrows and other missiles were useless in the dark, when it was impossible to see what to aim at; it was in close hand-to-hand fighting with the sword, in the melee of battle, that the Roman soldier was victorious. He decided to take these men as guides, and sent for Octavius, to whom he explained his plans, and he gave him instructions to sail to Heracleum and have in readiness ten days' rations for 1000 men. ”

“ Never was victory more decisive, never was the liberation of an oppressed people more instantaneous and complete. Throughout Germany the Roman garrisons were assailed and cut off; and, within a few weeks after Varus had fallen, the German soil was freed from the foot of an invader.
At Rome, the tidings of the battle was received with an agony of terror, the descriptions of which we should deem exaggerated, did they not come from Roman historians themselves. ”

“ Not long afterwards he won the sea-fight at Actium, where the contest continued to so late an hour that the victor passed the night on board. Having gone into winter quarters at Samos after Actium, he was disturbed by news of a mutiny of the troops that he had selected from every division of his army and sent on to Brundisium after the victory, who demanded their rewards and discharge; and on his way back to Italy he twice encountered storms at sea, first between the headlands of the Peloponnesus and Aetolia, and again off the Ceraunian mountains. ”

“ Attila saw the importance of the position taken by Aetius on the high ground, and commenced the battle by a furious attack on this part of the Roman line, in which he seems to have detached some of his best troops from his centre to aid his left. The Romans having the advantage of the ground, repulsed the Huns, and while the allies gained this advantage on their right, their left, under King Theodoric, assailed the Ostrogoths, who formed the right of Attila's army. ”

“ Then if of all these brave and mighty men," he added with a frown, "who draw the sword against a single Greek, there be but ten who will meet me brow to brow on the battle plain, I will write it in their blood that I am neither slave nor traitor, but a bold man, who dares to claim and to defend his own!"
Fierce wrath, stern revenge, majestic admiration, had swept over the countenance of Attila, like the broken masses of a rent thunder-cloud hurled over the sky by the succeeding blast. ”

“ Experience seems at length to have convinced the ancients, that as soon as their galleys exceeded two, or at the most three ranks of oars, they were suited rather for vain pomp than for real service. Augustus himself, in the victory of Actium, had seen the superiority of his own light frigates (they were called Liburnians) over the lofty but unwieldy castles of his rival. Of these Liburnians he composed the two fleets of Ravenna and Misenum, destined to command, the one the eastern, the other the western division of the Mediterranean ”

“ To close all access on this side they sent 4000 men to seize a height which commanded the road, distant rather less than a mile from their camp, where, as in a fort, they might prevent the enemy's advance. When they saw this, the Romans made ready for battle. Somewhat in front of the legions went the velites, the Cretan archers and slingers and the Tralli and Thracians under Attalus. The heavy infantry advanced slowly as the ground was steep and they held their shields in front of them, not because they expected a hand-to-hand contest, but simply to avoid the missiles. ”

“ As usual with the crowd they encouraged one another by saying that they hoped for the best and that Fortune helped the brave. Encouraged by the general voice, the tyrant gave out that Antiochus and the Aetolians would assist them, and he meanwhile had enough troops to stand a siege. Nobody now still talked of peace, and unable to remain quiet any longer they ran off to attack the enemy's advanced posts. The offensive movements of small bodies of skirmishers and the discharge of their missiles removed any doubt from the minds of the Romans that war was inevitable. ”

“ At the same time, lest they should suffer by fasting, he caused them to be served with refreshments while standing in line with their eyes fixed on the movements of the enemy. As soon as he perceived in what manner the battle had begun, the Roman general executed an evolution which was fatally adverse to the chances of the attacking troops. The wings were signalled to deploy towards the centre, and thus in a moment the Byzantine army assumed a crescentic formation, which embraced the Gothic cavalry between its extended horns. ”

“ When the Spartan army came near Attica all its people left their fields and homes and sought refuge, as once before, within the walls of their capacious capital city. Over the Attic plain marched the invaders, destroying the summer crops, burning the farmers' homesteads, yet recoiling in helpless rage before those strong walls behind which lay the whole population of the state. From the city, as we know, long and high walls stretched away to the sea and invested the seaport town of Piræus, within whose harbor lay the powerful Athenian fleet. ”

“ But in this tumultuary retreat the vanguard of the Romans and their allies continually pressed, and sometimes engaged, the troops which Attila had posted in the rear; the hostile columns, in the darkness of the night and the perplexity of the roads, might encounter each other without design; and the bloody conflict of the Franks and Gepids, in which fifteen thousand barbarians were slain, was a prelude to a more general and decisive action. ”

“ The victory which the Roman general Aetius, with his Gothic allies, had then gained over the Huns, was the last victory of imperial Rome. But among the long fasti of her triumphs, few can be found that, for their importance and ultimate benefit to mankind, are comparable with this expiring effort of her arms. It did not, indeed, open to her any new career of conquest—it did not consolidate the relics of her power—it did not turn the rapid ebb of her fortunes. The mission of imperial Rome was, in truth, already accomplished. ”

“ Then followed battering-rams and wall-breakers, taken from Roman arsenals or constructed on Roman models, though often clumsily enough; harnessed with horses and oxen and served by soldiers without weapons of attack, whose sole business it was to protect themselves and their teams against the projectiles of the enemy by means of their shields.
Close behind, in thick ranks and fully armed, furnished with battle-axes and strong knives for the hand-to-hand struggle, and dragging heavy ladders, came the warriors who were to undertake the assault. ”

“ If some of the front ranks fell, or were worn out, they took their places; and thus the Roman battle might last a good while. For this, armies must indeed have been trained and practised, as the Romans were. The dust and the shout of battle were not as confusing as the smoke and thunder of artillery. If the hastati had done fighting, they withdrew to the rear of the principes who now commenced; if the troops were overpowered, they fell back on the triarii, who, at that time, formed a reserve which, however, was always obliged to enter into the fight. ”

“ The herdsman bore it to Attila, who thenceforth was believed by the Huns to wield the Spirit of Death in battle; and the seers prophesied that that sword was to destroy the world. A Roman, [6] who was on an embassy to the Hunnish camp, recorded in his memoirs Attila's acquisition of this supernatural weapon, and the immense influence over the minds of the barbaric tribes which its possession gave him. In the title which he assumed, we shall see the skill with which he availed himself of the legends and creeds of other nations as well as of his own. ”

“ Aetius stationed the Franks and Burgundians, whose loyalty he doubted, in the centre, while he strengthened his wings, and assumed the command of his own left. The Huns, as expected, made their impetuous charge; the Roman army was cut in two; but the wings of Aetius overlapped the cavalry of Attila, and drove back his wings. Attila was beaten, and Gaul was saved from the Slavonic invaders. It is computed that three hundred thousand barbarians, on both sides, were slain—the most fearful slaughter recorded in the whole annals of war. ”

“ The Romans then, no longer able to keep their formation 5 were forced to defend themselves man to man and in small groups against those who attacked them on front and flank.6
"Aemilius had escaped the carnage on the right wing at the commencement of the battle. Wishing, according to the orders he had given, to be everywhere, and seeing that it was the legionary infantry that would decide the fate of the battle, he pushed his horse through the fray, warded off or killed every one who opposed him, and sought at the same time to reanimate the ardor of the Roman soldiers. ”

“ Catapults, posted on the city walls, kept up a continuous discharge of missiles; unceasing showers of stones came from the archers and slingers, while bodies of infantry were kept in readiness to sally forth whenever and wherever they saw an opportunity of doing damage. The Romans had, so to speak, to build and dig with a workman's tool in the one hand and a weapon in the other, but they stuck to their task with indefatigable zeal and inexhaustible courage. ”

“ The enthusiasm of the troops was so roused that the Aequi no longer withstood the attack. Then followed a slaughter of the fugitives, such as might be expected where men are actuated by rage even more than by courage; the army was destroyed. The doleful report from Tusculum and the groundless fears of the City were followed by a laurelled despatch from Postumius announcing the victory of Rome and the annihilation of the Aequian army. ”

“ It had been a day of terrible excitement; and no man, probably, in either army, had felt such strange and contending emotions as the young Roman, who, riding by the side of Attila through that terrible conflict, exerted every energy to defend the monarch's life, and yet from his heart wished success unto his enemies. Though every moment his own person had been in danger--the more, perhaps, because he sought to take the life of none himself--yet, during the day, he had not felt even that slight exciting shade of apprehension which is rather pleasing than otherwise. ”