An Octavian Chronicles Map.
Marcus Agrippa sailed his fleet southeast from the port of Brundisium, Italy, to the port of Methone on the southwest coase of Greece. Not long after after Agrippa departed and the seas were calm, Octavian sailed his fleet to the west coast of Greece to a location just north of Actium where he landed his army. He marched them south until they reached the northern peninsula of Actium. Meanwhile Agrippa moved north along the coast of Greece defeating Antony’s forces, port by port.
When they met up, he and Agrippa put Antony and Cleopatra under siege at Mutina; Octavian blocking food and supplies from arriving by land from the north, Agrippa blocking supply ships sailing up the west coast of Greece.
Antony’s best strategy would have been to retreat to the east and survive to fight another day, but Cleopatra argued against it because she had all her treasure and a large amount of Egypt’s treasure loaded on her ships. If it were not a sea battle she would have had to send her treasure to the bottom of the sea so that the enemy wouldn’t get it. Against the advice of his generals, Antony decided in her favor though his men were ravaged with illness and weak from lack of food.
The Octavian Chronicle ‘Battle of Actium – 31 Bc’ is more a study of the strong personalities of the main characters than it is the details of a military battle.
