WI: Mark Antony Wins Civil War?

Now, Actium is far from the decisive battle it is portrayed to be. The battles was fairly minor-it was the events after the battle, and the complete unravelling of the Antonian/Cleopatran effort afterwards that was decisive.

With that said, Antony held all the cards in Greece initially yet played a series of bad hands to put himself in the position he was at Actium. So, what if he gambles on a land battle, which Canidius had argued he should do, instead of a naval battle, and wins? How does an Antony dominating the Roman world turn out?

Contrary to popular belief, Antony was not hated by the Romans as an eastern monarch or something along those lines-that was how Octavian portrayed him, and he had to go to great lengths to even get the Senate to sanction a war against Cleopatra, for he couldn't even get them to agree to declare war on Antony. Of course even then more than a third of the Senate up and left and made way to Antony's camp. So, he is still very popular with a large portion of the Roman Senate, and the people don't hate him either.

Now, what would his rule look like: I imagine he'd still spend a lot (though not all) his time in the east. Another go at an invasion of Parthia with the help of his ally, the Median King Artavasdes, is almost a given. I can see him having a very hands off approach as far as governing goes. Maybe he leaves a few friends like Ahenobarbus and Canidius (conveniently two people who didn't get along with Cleopatra too...) to look after the west with the Senate having a lot of autonomy for how they go about their business.

edit: Also, I forgot to mention Hellenization: I can see over time a much more Hellenized west. This seemed to be happening OTL naturally, and Octavian went to great lengths it seems to stop this hellenization of the west culturally, while at the same time having a lot of his building projects stem from what he saw in his visit to Alexandria. So that in and of itself will have huge longterm repercussions.
Thoughts?
 
I think Mark Anthony would've reigned supreme until his death, after which the Republic would be revived or another military, strong faction takes over. I don't think he would've been able to establish the Principiate in the same manner Octavian did, so I think it would've been a while until we would have something like the Roman Empire OTL.
 
I can see that happening, yeah. Though it will be interesting to see what happens with Alexander Helios, Caesarion, Iullus, and Antyllus.
 
I think Caesarion would definitely have a chance in the political arena, if he adapts enough. I don't think the others will, though, because they're not the descendants of Caesar. Marc was planning on giving them kingdoms, right? I think he would reconsider that move later on, so they would probably be shoved into the background.
 
Neither was Caesarion. Everybody knows that he was the son of Titus Pullo. :cool:

Lol. Though on a more serious note one thing is clear: Caesar's actions seem to show he thought of Caesarion as his own (and Cleopatra certainly did) and Octavian seems to have believed so as well (As much as he wouldn't admit it), as did Mark Antony.


Though Alexander Helios was proclaimed King in the east IIRC at the Donations of Alexandria right? So if Antony has success in taiming Parthia, Alexander Helios might have an avenue there for success.
 
I'm strongly inclined to believe Cleopatra's children would pick each other off before they all reached adulthood. Caesarion would marry Cleopatra Selene but Alexander Helios, Ptolemy Philadelphus and any other babies his mother gave Antony would most likely find themselves at the bottom of the blue sea or chopped up in a box or poisoned etc.

Antony could either be reconciled to Rome and set up his own Principate, with far greater Hellenistic influence, or go all out and set himself up as a Hellenistic monarch merely annexing the Roman Republic to a wider empire, maintaining Roman forms like the legions, municipia, citizenship, law, etc, while (much like Augustus) making proconsuls, propraetors, procurators, etc, analogous to satraps or strategoi of the East.
 
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