WI: Octavian's fleet lost at sea

As stated above, what would happen if Octavian and the fleet he sent to Actium was destroyed by a storm, an he died in the process?
How viable are Mark Anthony's and Cleopatra's control of Egypt and the east?
Thoughts?
Comments?
 
Without Octavian around, Agrippa would succeed him as one of the triumvirates but Antony and Cleopatra will benefit in the long run since they won't have to worry about a hostile rival literally breathing down their necks. It would also give the Ptolemy line a longer lifespan in terms of dynasties.
 
Agrippa's position at this point rested solely on Octavian's patronage and power. Agrippa held no real elected military command. The triumvirate was not a hereditary system.

I should also point out, even if it was, the soldiers are loyal to Octavian, not Agrippa. Just like at Caesar's death, they had been loyal to Caesar, not some over-arching Caesarian cause, which was why we saw some of Caesar's legions fighting for Brutus and Cassius, other's fighting for Hirtius and Pansa against Antony in Mutina, others with Octavian, some loyal to Antony, and still others with Decimus Brutus and Marcus Lepidus in Ciscalpine and Transalpine Gaul.

In other words, Antony just won the civil war bloodlessly.
 
there would be opposition to Antony, with Agrippa as the most likely leader. Antony would likely capture Rome and install himself as dictator-for-life. Which may not be very long. Caesarion would likely end up as dictator. The republic would be doomed but Antony would prefer to establish. Dictator-for-lif system rather than have the brains to make the principeate.
 
The republic would be doomed but Antony would prefer to establish. Dictator-for-lif system rather than have the brains to make the principeate.

I am not sure, if Antonius would target for the Liftime Dictatorship. And you need more than this to rule an empire anyways.

I recommend you read this timeline written by Slydessertfox.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=279202

In the last chapter you see a very interesting move of Antonius influenced by Cleopatra and her hellenistic mindset. Perhaps this was already the longterm plan of Julius Caesar, designed in Cleopatras bedroom, too. I doubt Antonius has the intellectual capacity to invent something totally new, like Augustus did or Agrippa would have been able to do. So it makes sense, that he picks up an existing plan based on a proven model and with the support of some of the most intelligent persons of her time: Cleopatra. Her favourite governance model is called King of Kings.

Augustus toasted Antonius in the senate, because he was going for this system. Of course his propaganda perverted Antonius' not so unroman motivations. So why should Antonius drop his plan, after he won at Actium and ask for dictatorship? Perhaps for Rome & Italy and just temporarily if he needs that at all.

PS: Btw Sly, if you read this. You could have saved a lot of work and 20 chapters of your timeline by just let Augustus loose at Actium :)
 
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Agrippa would certainly not become the leader of the party that had Octavian as its leader. Agrippa, at his time, though having been consul through the support of his patron Octavian, was some kind of a mister nobody and was despised by almost the whole nobility because of his obscure origins.

Besides, if Octavian's fleet is destroyed by a storm, there is a high probability that Agrippa dies in this storm too, since he was Augustus's admiral and chief strategist.

What also must be taken into account is that in this triumvirate (Anthony, Octavian, Lepidus) and then duumvirate (Anthony and Octavian), Octavian was and had always been the civil war monger.

He was the one who did not respect agreements. He was the one who wanted civil war. He caused civil war in 44/43 by playing against Anthony and then against Cassius and Brutus. He had a large responsibility in the perusian war in 41. He illegaly put Lepidus down from his "seat" in the triumvirate. He made a coup in january 32 when he faced 2 hostile consuls for the new year and forces italian elites into an oath.

So, if Octavian had died, you most probably would have seen a "national" reconciliation of Antonius and his noble allies with the wide majority of the nobles that had finally gathered around Octavian. And this reconciliation might have been concluded at the expense of the reputation of the dead war-monger Octavian who would have been depicted into a civil war monger, a new Sulla, a young butcher.

Lepidus hiimself would probably have come back to political life and renewed his old alliance with Anthony.
 
Agrippa would certainly not become the leader of the party that had Octavian as its leader. Agrippa, at his time, though having been consul through the support of his patron Octavian, was some kind of a mister nobody and was despised by almost the whole nobility because of his obscure origins.

Besides, if Octavian's fleet is destroyed by a storm, there is a high probability that Agrippa dies in this storm too, since he was Augustus's admiral and chief strategist.

What also must be taken into account is that in this triumvirate (Anthony, Octavian, Lepidus) and then duumvirate (Anthony and Octavian), Octavian was and had always been the civil war monger.

He was the one who did not respect agreements. He was the one who wanted civil war. He caused civil war in 44/43 by playing against Anthony and then against Cassius and Brutus. He had a large responsibility in the perusian war in 41. He illegaly put Lepidus down from his "seat" in the triumvirate. He made a coup in january 32 when he faced 2 hostile consuls for the new year and forces italian elites into an oath.

So, if Octavian had died, you most probably would have seen a "national" reconciliation of Antonius and his noble allies with the wide majority of the nobles that had finally gathered around Octavian. And this reconciliation might have been concluded at the expense of the reputation of the dead war-monger Octavian who would have been depicted into a civil war monger, a new Sulla, a young butcher.

Lepidus hiimself would probably have come back to political life and renewed his old alliance with Anthony.

Antony did promise to stop using his triumvirate title six months after he achieved victory over Octavian. Now this would have little real effect on Antony's power methinks, because his power rested on his prestige, clientale, and money/military success more than his position as triumvir. He could be like Pompey and Crassus fused together, except on a much larger scale, as far as influence and power goes.

Though this might leave room for the traditional workings of the Republic to get back in order. Maybe a return to the consuls actually serving a full year instead of the rotating of suffect consuls seen during the triumvirate and during the principate.
 
Antony may have been a bit of a boor, to put it mildly, but people are giving him too little credit. The man was not an incompetent administrator and, most importantly, had a very good eye for talent. Octavian, upon defeating Antony and surveying the East, pretty much left things as Antony had them. High praise from someone who hated his guts and had every reason to distrust Antony's former subordinates.

But, of course, when compared to Augustus, he looks dim.
 
He was also good at flaunting his power and making it blatantly obvious he had all the power. That's something that's not going to go down well in Rome. I'm actually starting to agree with Adrian goldsworthy on this.

And while he wasn't a bad administrator he wasn't a great one either. His tenure serving in place for Caesar wasn't very good. He did have an eye for talent though as you pointed out.

Overall though, I don't think he could survive long. I'm going to contradict what I said earlier and agree with Pericles that he might make himself dictator, or if not dictator at least keep his triumvirate power which may as well make him a dictator. He was more in your face about his power and didn't seem to have any plans for reform but just wanted to have power. He could very well end up like Caesar.
 
I agree that he doesn't have the savvy or sophistication necessary to hold the Empire together. I'm just pointing out that he's not quite as sunk as everyone assumes.
 
I agree that he doesn't have the savvy or sophistication necessary to hold the Empire together. I'm just pointing out that he's not quite as sunk as everyone assumes.

Agreed. He tends to be portrayed as completely inept and a fool, or as incredibly talented and militarily and politically gifted. His military record isn't too great either with his only major victory comic against two very inexperienced commanders at Philippi.
 
Of course Antony's military record was not incredible. And he was not e genious like Scipio Africanus, Sertorius or Caesar. But he did defeat Cassius at the first battle of Philippi. And Cassius was a very good commander, though not a genius either.

The best tribute to Antony's military abilities on land was Agrippa's and Augustus choice to fight Antony on the seas, though they had numeric superiority on land.

Concerning Antony's alleged inability to hold the empire together, I think this is a misinterpretation. To my opinion, this point of view is just the illustration of a classic mistake : taking for truth what is only the winner's caricatural propaganda of the loser.

Most people do adapt because life must go on.

Augustus' political solution of the crisis of the roman republic was one solution, his own, but it was not the only possible solution. What make us see Augustus' solution as the right one is in fact his mere ability to crush any opposition and to crush any assassination attempt against himself.

There were many plots and assaination attempts against Augustus. The only difference between Augustus and Caesar was that Augustus was much more suspicious and ruthless than Caesar on his personal security.

If he had won the civil war, Antony could perfectly, given all his resources, have succeeded in holding together the empire.
 
The reason Augustus" system survived was because he didn't flaunt his power and kept a facade that his power was based off senatorial consent and cooperation. That's where. Caesar and Antony went snd would have gone wrong. Anton DID flaunt his power which got him into trouble when he stood in for Caesar. It's not like alas tiny was unique either, every senator craved power and loved to revel in it. They also didn't tolerate it when another senator made it painfully obvious he was superior to them in extra constitutional power.

This continued well into the principate, just ask Caligula and Domitian. Antony wanted power but he didn't have any reason to alter the roman governance system. He could already have as much power as possibles, within the system. Sort of like Pompey, except more officially.
 
I agree that Antonius was not very polite to the senate, when he was a Consul.

But who says, that this guy could not learn the lessons during the decade afterwards? Heck it is not that tricky to analyze the roman aristocrats and act
accordingly.

My problem with every protagonist in an alternate roman history, who has no clue and plan about the future of the empire is: he is nice to have, but useless.

Lookng to the still running and alive threads on this forum, I am not sure, that Antonius is useless.
 
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This argument does not stand. You are comparing Antony with post 27 BCE Augustus.

You should compare Antony with pre-27 or pre-30 Octavian.

Before being the sole master of the empire, Octavian never showed more respect to the Senate than Antony did. He even was rather more ruthless than Antony, scaring his opponents to exile or to silent when he did not simply banish or slaughter them.

You are victim of Augustus' propaganda.

And even after 27 BCE, Augustus came to the Senate with his guards and even sometimes wearing some kind of armor under his toga (to protect his neck againt any blade).
 
This argument does not stand. You are comparing Antony with post 27 BCE Augustus.

You should compare Antony with pre-27 or pre-30 Octavian.

Before being the sole master of the empire, Octavian never showed more respect to the Senate than Antony did. He even was rather more ruthless than Antony, scaring his opponents to exile or to silent when he did not simply banish or slaughter them.

You are victim of Augustus' propaganda.

And even after 27 BCE, Augustus came to the Senate with his guards and even sometimes wearing some kind of armor under his toga (to protect his neck againt any blade).

Octavian was also very young. Antony was in his 50's at this time-that's like saying Caesar would just do a complete 180 and resign the dictatorship and return power to the republic if he wasn't assassinated-you are completely changing the type of person he was for the first 5 decades of his life.

Octavian, despite his ruthlessness and reputation for savagery, was much more politically apt than Antony was. He also had been in Rome for the past 12 years for the most part leading up to Actium-so he had a much firmer understanding of the public opinion in Rome and how to manipulate it. He also did not grow up as a privileged aristocrat from a prominent senatorial family who went climbed up the republican system's ladder. Which means, he had no respect for the republican system because he never experienced it-that made reforming it much easier for him to contemplate.
 
Sorry but I still disagree with you.

Octavian did not finally choose to pretend restoring the republic because he had time to mature. He put a formally republican veil on his military monarchy because he finally found that it was an opportune way to marginalize his rival Antony. He wanted a civil war against his rival, so he used caricatural propaganda to depict Antony as the hostage of Cleopatra the witch and to depict his war as a war against an eastern queen.

Only victory proved him right. If Antony had won, everybody would have turned its back to Octavian who would have been depicted as a tyrant who had tormented Italy and who had falsified Caesar’s will in order to become the main heir of the dictator.
Absolutely nobody in the Italian social elite believed in Octavian’s lie about his so-called restoration of the republic. Tacitus is very clear about this : the augustan Princeps had nothing in common with Cicero’s Princeps. The point is that the people were rather happy to have a Princeps that checked the haughty aristocrats and protected them from the excesses of aristocratic competition.

And though Octavian was not born in one of the most prestigious noble families (he clearly was not a Claudius, an Aemilius, a Fabius Maximus, a Valerius, a Scipio, a Metellus or a Domitius), his father was praetor in 61 and governor of Macedonia after his death. Being related by marriage to Caesar and Pompey (his wife Atia was Caesar’s niece and also a distant cousin of Pompey), he had strong prospects of being elected consul, if he had not died in 59.

From 4 years old on, Octavian was raised by his grandmother Julia Caesaris, that is Caesar’s sister, in the decade when Caesar, Pompey and Crassus were the 3 most prominent roman politicians.

So, of Octavian certainly had no respect for the republican system, I draw a very different conclusion from yours about what this absence of respect made him do.
This absence of respect made him reignite a civil war at he age of only 18, when Antony was striving to maintain concord.
It made him betray or have killed any opponent or partisan of his ruthless partisan ambition. He had inherited Caesar’s name, but not Caesar’s clementia and personal charm. Augustus had much more in common with Sulla and Pompey than with Caesar.
And he risked reigniting civil war or reignited it several times until he got rid of Antony.
He was a great machiavelian politician. No doubt about it. But this does not mean that he was the only one who could have held the empire together or find an acceptable political solution to the crisis of the republic just because he happened to do it.
 
Sorry but I still disagree with you.

Octavian did not finally choose to pretend restoring the republic because he had time to mature. He put a formally republican veil on his military monarchy because he finally found that it was an opportune way to marginalize his rival Antony. He wanted a civil war against his rival, so he used caricatural propaganda to depict Antony as the hostage of Cleopatra the witch and to depict his war as a war against an eastern queen.
Yup.
Only victory proved him right. If Antony had won, everybody would have turned its back to Octavian who would have been depicted as a tyrant who had tormented Italy and who had falsified Caesar’s will in order to become the main heir of the dictator.
Yup.
Absolutely nobody in the Italian social elite believed in Octavian’s lie about his so-called restoration of the republic. Tacitus is very clear about this : the augustan Princeps had nothing in common with Cicero’s Princeps. The point is that the people were rather happy to have a Princeps that checked the haughty aristocrats and protected them from the excesses of aristocratic competition.
Sure. But when emperors stopped using the facade, they payed dearly for it. Again, I point to Caligula and Domitian for that. Also, Caesar.

And though Octavian was not born in one of the most prestigious noble families (he clearly was not a Claudius, an Aemilius, a Fabius Maximus, a Valerius, a Scipio, a Metellus or a Domitius), his father was praetor in 61 and governor of Macedonia after his death. Being related by marriage to Caesar and Pompey (his wife Atia was Caesar’s niece and also a distant cousin of Pompey), he had strong prospects of being elected consul, if he had not died in 59.
Yes, but he achieved power because he was Caesar's heir, got the support of the army, raised his own army, and coerced the Senate to make him consul as a teenager. You can say this is similar to Pompey, but Pompey was still in an age where it was necessary to at least stay nominally within Republican principle.

Having Caesar as your sole role model and sole intermediary for understanding Roman politics only reinforces my point that he saw no reason to keep the Republican system.
From 4 years old on, Octavian was raised by his grandmother Julia Caesaris, that is Caesar’s sister, in the decade when Caesar, Pompey and Crassus were the 3 most prominent roman politicians.
See above.
So, of Octavian certainly had no respect for the republican system, I draw a very different conclusion from yours about what this absence of respect made him do.
This absence of respect made him reignite a civil war at he age of only 18, when Antony was striving to maintain concord.
Ok, and?
It made him betray or have killed any opponent or partisan of his ruthless partisan ambition. He had inherited Caesar’s name, but not Caesar’s clementia and personal charm. Augustus had much more in common with Sulla and Pompey than with Caesar.
Ok, and?
And he risked reigniting civil war or reignited it several times until he got rid of Antony.
Ok, and? None of this I have ever contested.
He was a great machiavelian politician. No doubt about it.
I feel like a broken record. Ok, and?

But this does not mean that he was the only one who could have held the empire together or find an acceptable political solution to the crisis of the republic just because he happened to do it.
I'm not saying he is. Sextus Pompey is another one. But Marc Antony is not. He was in his 50's and no matter how unorthodox his career may have been, he still climbed the Roman latter and achieved power through the standard Roman political system-first military tribune, then quaestor, then tribune, then consul...Plus he was an aristocratic Roman in the truest form-he came from a family that could boast of having one of the greatest orators of the age, his grandfather, and he could expect to attain high office and did. He grew up with the republican system, and had no reason to WANT to reform it. Why should he reform it when he could just continue in his dictatorial esque triumviral powers and have as much power as he possibly could, which was all he wanted? He was a Roman aristocrat, in the purest sense, caring about accumulating as much power as possible, unable to contemplate a non-republican Rome.

There's a reason Caesar was murdered and Augustus was not, even though they both had equal amounts of power and prestige and army support.
 
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