Octavian, Mark Antony, and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium
Category: Lecture
Length: 58:02
| Video Date | 03/02/2022 |
| Film Description | By the first century BCE, Rome had gained control of the entire Mediterranean, but those conquests had been accompanied by a century of civil war that witnessed the assassination of politicians on all sides of the political spectrum. At one point, the adherents of one populist politician marched on Rome's temple of Castor and Pollux, which was closely associated with the Senate, and tore up the temple steps. This period of nearly continuous warfare would not end until 31 BCE, when Julius Caesar’s nephew Octavian vanquished the combined forces of Mark Antony and the Egyptian queen Cleopatra at the battle of Actium in northwestern Greece. This talk reviews the events leading up to the conflict, the circumstances of the battle itself, and the relationship between Egypt and Rome thereafter. About the Speaker C. Brian Rose, Ph.D.,is James B. Pritchard Professor of Mediterranean Archaeology and Peter C. Ferry Curator-in-Charge of the Mediterranean Section. Since 1988 he has been Head of Post-Bronze Age excavations at Troy, and between 2004-2007 he directed a survey project in the Granicus River Valley that focused on recording and mapping the Graeco-Persian tombs that dominate the area. In 2013, he became director of the Gordion Excavations in central Turkey, and in 2015 was elected President of the American Research Institute in Turkey. His research has concentrated on the political and artistic relationship between Rome and the provinces (Dynastic Commemoration and Imperial Portraiture in the Julio-Claudian Period, Cambridge, 1997), and on the monuments of Troy during the Classical periods (The Archaeology of Greek and Roman Troy, Cambridge, 2014). |
| Video Category | Lecture |
| Film Creator | C. Brian Rose |