Real Dictators - Augustus Part 2: Caesar’s Revenge

Episode Date: September 15, 2026

Alongside Mark Antony, Octavian hunts down Great-Uncle Julius’s assassins. But Antony will soon go rogue, beguiled - just like Caesar - by Queen Cleopatra of Egypt. Octavian will strike without mercy. With General Agrippa to the fore, he will soon command absolute power over the entire Roman world… A Noiser podcast production. Narrated by Paul McGann. Featuring Lauren Ginsberg, David Gwynn, Neville Morley, Joyce Tyldesley. This is Part 2 of 3. Written by Jeff Dawson | Assistant Producer: Luke Lonergan | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound supervisors: Tom Pink, Matt Peaty | Sound design & audio editing by George Tapp | Assembly editing by Dorry Macaulay | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cian Ryan-Morgan | Recording engineer: Joseph McGann. You can listen to the final episode of the Augustus story straight after this - without waiting and without ads - by joining Noiser+. Just click the subscription banner at the top of the feed or go to noiser.com/subscriptions Limited time: download Supremacy: World War 3 for free via our link and get an exclusive Elite Bomber Seasonal Unit worth $25 - but only for the next 30 days: https://con.onelink.me/kZW6/6wtag9jg Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025. Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19-speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility, and Optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary. Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. At September 2nd, in the year 31 BC, we're at Actium on the Gulf of Ambracia, an inlet of the Ionian Sea.

It's about 30 miles down the coast from the island of Corfu, in a country that was then, as it is today, Greece. It's a beautiful day, calm, still, near windless. But the tranquility is an illusion. Across the waters just a mile or so offshore, a scene of death and destruction is playing out. The sea is awash with warships, galleys, hundreds of vessels, two huge navies interlocked in a fight to the death. Fireballs are off through the air, launched by ship-borne catapults. Some boats are aflame, black smoke wafts. Elsewhere holes have been rammed. Water rushes into gaping, spleners.

into the holes, forcing stricken vessels to capsize. Across decks men scurry like ants, flinging nets and grappling books, hauling the enemy close enough for boarding and hand-to-hand combat from their command post on the bluffs, Octavian and his trusty general, Agrippa, survey the action that's taking place between their own fleet, the official army of Rome, and the renegade squadrons of Mark Anthony, the once great. great ally turned enemy. The gripper has played it to perfection. Despite the size and power of Antony's ships, Octavian's smaller vessels are more maneuverable,

weaving around their foe. Anthony's armada includes around 60 Egyptian vessels. They come complete with a massive flagship, a huge war galley belonging to Queen Cleopatra herself. There is a rumor she may be on board. At the height of the battle, with victory in the balance, something strange happens. The flagship breaks off. It heads for open water in the passage south.

Unthinkably, Anthony disengages to chase after it. Pulling alongside, he climbs aboard. It sails away over the horizon. The queen was there after all. And Anthony, placing love above honour, has cost his men not just the Battle of Actium, but the last civil war of the Roman Republic. Disheartened with their commander fleeing, Anthony's men lose momentum. Rome carries the day.

Little stands now between Octavian and Absolute Power. From the Noiser Podcast Network. This is part two of the Augustus story. And this is real dictators. When we left, Octavian, he was in the town of Apollonia, in present-day Albania. Aged 18, he was on an educational and military program, a sort of graduate school for the Roman gentry. It was there in March 44 BC that he received stunning news, something that has shaken Rome to its very core. Its leader, Julius Caesar, his great uncle, possibly the most famous.

Roman who ever lived has been assassinated, stabbed to death by 23 fellow senators. The public reading of Caesar's will has added another twist to this tale. Caesar's nominated heir is none other than Octavian. Dr David Gwynn. Caesar's murder is a colossal shock. I mean, it wasn't exactly a secret conspiracy. Too many people knew about it. But nonetheless, it is not something everyone can see coming.

And it really does look like Gaius Octavius does not expect the murder, but also doesn't know that the will would transform his status. Caesar's wealth, or 75% of it, will go to Octavian personally. This is no guarantee of political office. Despite Caesar's kingly pretensions, the very thing that got him killed, this is not a monarchical system. Octavian is not a crown prince. No, this is very much a Roman senator dying and writing the normal will of a Roman senator.

It just happens to be on a scale that most Roman senatorial wills can't imagine. But there is something else that has been bequeathed to Octavian. Something beyond measure. Caesar's name. In one final act from beyond the grave, Julius Caesar has adopted Octavian as his very own son. From now on, this scrawny, sickly youth, according to protocol, is to be known as Gaius Julius Caesar. It's the brand of immense power.

Some historians, to mark the distinction, will record him as Gaius Julius Caesar Octavius. For the sake of clarity and continuity, and because it's going to get even more complicated down the line, we are going to stick with Octavian. Back in Rome, Mark Anthony has taken the will's revelations like a punch to the gut. Dr. Lauren Ginsberg. On the one hand, we have Antony who's held every political office on the appropriate ladder that you were supposed to have. He has just been elected Rome's consul. He was Caesar's right-hand manned. He has incredible loyalty from Caesar's troops.

And he has more experience than almost any other person. And on the other hand, you have a teenager with no political account. experience, who, because he's been named Caesar's heir, now has access to quite a lot of money. Anthony, however, is the will's executor. In fact, Caesar's widow, Calpurnia, assuming Anthony's elevation to be a foregone conclusion, has already placed her late husband's assets under Anthony's control. If Octavian wants what's his, or he believes to be his, he's got to come and get it. Professor Neville Morley

It's not quite the fairy tale But it's a little bit like that That suddenly young teenager Is taken out of obscurity by rich powerful man And offered all of these opportunities Suddenly he's been put up on the same level As you know great generals and senators and so forth Suddenly he is the heir to all of this money

Well nice if he can hang on to it suddenly he is dealing with these really scary people like Mark Anthony, battle-hardened, utterly, utterly ruthless, highly political types. Which is why Octavian doesn't grab his stuff immediately and head for the harbour. This is not a case of Carpe Diem, seizing the day. He will weigh up his options. He will wait. Some think Octavian should renounce the inheritance altogether. including his own stepfather, Lucius Marcius Philippus, a former consul himself.

Octavian's already set up for a comfortable life. He doesn't need the hassle. The whole thing is a poisoned chalice. We're assuming the news reached him about as quickly as it could, because the members of Cesar's family would have sent messages. But those messages may indeed have said, stay put. Don't come back. You know, don't risk putting yourself right in the middle of this fire.

When he was named Julius Caesar's heir, and specifically that he was supposed to take Julius Caesar's name in the will, his stepfather, Atia's mother, said, don't do that. This is too dangerous. This is ridiculous. Don't. You're fine. Your life will be fine by not doing this. Please don't take this name. Octavian takes further soundings from military and political emissaries and from his friends, Gaius Mycinas and Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. But after a month or so of soul-searching, Octavian has made up his mind. This opportunity is too good to pass up. And so he embarks on the short sea crossing over the Adriatic. A day later, his ship docks in Brundizium, Brindisi, on the heel of the Italian boot. Prundizium is an important port, Rome's gateway to the east.

It's also where a great army has been mustering. Julius Caesar, if you remember, had been just days from leading a military expedition to take on rival superpower, the Parthian Empire. For Octavian, it will be the first test, presenting himself before Caesar's troops. There's every chance they'll howl him down and pledge their allegiance to Anthony. It must have been very tense. He doesn't know if, for example, the soldiers are going to accept him. He hasn't spent that much time with Caesar's army. Mark Anthony, of course, has.

Anthony's a veteran soldier he's been fighting with Caesar for over a decade. So there's no question. The odds are stacked against him. But Octavian is as bold as he's instinctive. He's met with whole legions that instantly acclaim him as their new Caesar. Caesar's soldiers are loyal to Caesar. Now, if part of being Caesar's heir is to claim the control over the Caesar's armies, then in one strike you become one of the most powerful players in the Roman world.

It's not just the fighting men now at Octavian's disposal, but also Caesar's traveling war chest, a whopping 700 million Cistercies. It's about $3 billion in today's money, should he need to commission this army into action. In the capital, Mark Anthony is treading cautiously. At the time of Caesar's death, he's He was his co-consul. He is the most senior politician left standing in the Roman Republic. In trying to maintain civic order, positioning himself as a natural ruler, perhaps one to be granted emergency dictatorial powers, he has brokered a temporary peace with Caesar's assassins. These conspirators, as part of another do-over, have restyled themselves the Liberatores, the Liberators.

They stick to their party line, that in killing Caesar they had simply performed their duty to preserve the Republic. On the streets, however, the plebs are not happy. There is continuing outrage overseas as untimely end. There is violence, rioting and looting. The Senate's Caesarean faction channels their anger. The truce can only hold for so long. One thing is apparent.

The liberators have not thought things through. To them, offing Caesar was an end in itself, dispose of the dictator, and they could all move on. A case of business as usual. Clearly, the people that stabbed him 23 times thought that they were going to be able to restore the Republic and boy, were they wrong. But Antony, even at Caesar's staunchest ally, recognizes that the most important thing is not vengeance against Caesar's assassination. It's keeping the peace. Of course, that's a no-win compromise when your best friend and your closest ally, has just been stabbed to death on the Senate floor, but it stopped for their bloodshed,

and it also probably saved Rome from burning. The Liberators are not to be underestimated. Out in the countryside, they're assembling an army of dissenting legions and ex-gladiators. The ringleaders of the assassination plot, Brutus, Cassius, and Decimus are all experienced military commanders. Anthony can only play peacnick for so long. As the armies begin to muster, he is soon taking charge of the Caesarian forces. Rome once again is heading for civil war. I'm Julie Andrews, and it is my great pleasure to return to Jane Austen stories.

This time I'll be reading another beloved classic Emma. Join me as we step into the village of Highbury, home to the handsome and clever Emma Woodhouse. But as new visitors arrive and quiet mysteries unfold, what will our strong-willed heroine learn, both of the secrets of others and of her own heart's desires? Listen to Jane Austen's stories now wherever you get your podcasts. This September on the Noiser Podcast Network. On Jane Austen stories, Dame Julie Andrews continues to bring Austin's beloved classic Emma to life. On short history of, we're in medieval England for the fascinating story of the peasants' revolt,

and 25 years on from 9-11 were on the ground in New York City. On real survival stories, we're on a luscious winery in northwest America, and venturing into a missile silo in the dead of night as the US is threatened with nuclear disaster. And, in Sherlock Holmes' short stories, get two episodes each week as Hugh Bonneville explores Conan Doyle's great novel, A Study in Scarlet. Get all of these shows and more early and add free on Noiser Plus. Octavian takes his time, not reaching Rome till May the 6th, a full seven weeks after Caesar's assassination. Pointedly, he doesn't storm the capital at the head of an army, but arrives with an armful of scrolls. He's going to secure his legitimacy correctly. He wants to do things by the book.

He's not an impulsive military leader. He's a powerful. politically strategic planner. And like any brilliant political planner, he works out where he's trying to get to who he needs to get there. You can't rule alone. A dictator cannot stand just on their own feet. You need to build a structure. And then you have to maintain it.

It's going to be a trial and error process. So the key is don't make too many errors and learn from them. And he does. The Senate has sought to diffuse the situation. By spiriting away the key players, it can keep things contained. Of the Liberators, Dechimus is assigned to governs Sissalpine Gore, broadly northern Italy. Brutus and Cassius, albeit with roles well below their station, are dispatched as trade envoys to Asia Minor.

Antony, for his pains, when his consulship expires, will get a posting to Syria, though he's having none of it. With Decimus just up the road, Rome will be at the Liberator's mercy, he argues. Better that Sissalpine Gaul be granted to him. Antony essentially does not want to be dispatched to the far reaches of the Roman Empire. Antony wants to stay on the Italian peninsula and wants to stay close because Antony is interested in maintaining his status as the most senior caesarian. He probably also is underestimating Octadian at this point, and he's not interested in being sent

away by a bunch of other senators that had essentially assassinated his dear friend on the Senate floor. Fortunately for Anthony, the Senate is shifting firmly into the Caesarian camp. But whether it should claim Anthony or the newly arrived Octavian as its champion is the subject of fierce debate. In the ensuing propaganda war, supporters of Octavian trot out all the usual tales of Anthony's debauchery and drunkenness of his unsuitability to govern. Anthony's advocates, meanwhile, use another well-belled.

worn trick when trashing an opponent, claiming that they owe their position to sexual favors rendered, a suggestion that Octavian had served Caesar as some kind of toy boy. Then there's that business of one of his ancestors, possibly, possibly being a slave. The fires are stoked further by an old hand, a statesman, philosopher, and lawyer, Marcus Tullius Cicero. The Republicans are i.e. those who still want to believe the old Republican model can be restored, many of them were killed in the Caesar-Pompi Civil War, but there's still a solid core left, and their most important representative is Cicero. And Cicero isn't a soldier, never was, but he is the greatest orator in the history of Rome, an incredibly persuasive speaker, and a very intelligent thinker.

Cicero has already gone on record claiming that Caesar's assassination was a job half done. A suggestion that the conspirators should have bumped off Anthony too. In the Battle of Anthony versus Octavian, Cicero has picked aside, going with the young pretender. Octavian could have no one more impressive in his corner. Cicero lays into Anthony in a series of humiliating diatribes, known as the Philippics, named after a famous set of Greek orations. I think Octavian's youth worked for him. in that everyone underestimated him, everyone underestimated specifically his ambition and his

ruthlessness, and specifically Cicero, who is the chief agent of giving Octavian any political legitimacy, fundamentally misunderstands him. And there are a series of letters that he's writing to Decumus Brutus in which they're talking about Octavian, and they keep referring to him as the little adolescent. And that in another letter, Cicero assures a different friend that he can continue to guide and steer the adolescent boy. And at one point, Decomus Brutus writes back with caution and says, I wish I could make you understand how deeply I fear that young man. To the Roman public, the sight of Caesar 2.0, this Octavian, is still perplexing. He is not some great warrior Adonis, but a skinny pale youth with a mass of golden curls,

a mouthful of craggy teeth. But this unconventional hero does have something that. all appreciate. Deep pockets. Despite his inability to access his inheritance yet, Octavian stumps up a small personal fortune, raised from loans, to put on a series of public games. He knows that appeasement of the masses will always come down to, as the poet Juvenal put it, panametsa kensis, bread and circuses. Anthony, meanwhile, is growing restless. There's only so long He can wear a toga playing politics, making nicey-nicy. He is at heart a man in uniform. Itching to have a crack at the Liberators,

he takes his own loyal legions and marches them north. Defeating Caesar's assassins will put him back in the spotlight. Plus, he can grab cis alpine gall for himself. Things are about to get very complicated. In a move to sideline Anthony, the Senate decrees that his military campaign, is an illegal act. He is a loose cannon, clearly as tyrannical as Caesar before him. The two new consuls, Hurtius and Panser, raise an army to go after him. But when they both die in

battle, Rome is again Rodolus. At a snap of his fingers, Octavian summons Caesar's old legions plus their war chest, and also appropriates their now leaderless senatorial armies. He will place himself and his men at the Senate's disposal he offers. But with a quid pro quo. The Senate now, Sister O and the others, kindly send him a message that says, please give these armies up. He says no.

Why would I give these armies up? I'm not interested in that. I control them now. And then he says, I would like to be given the consulship, 19 years old. I would like to be given the consulship. You have to be 40 to be consul.

The Senate says, no, no. And he says, I don't even mean want to stand for election, I would like to be given the consulship and the Senate says no. And this is something Octavian famously covers at the opening of his autobiography. He raised an army, meaning he kept the church that he had and he marched on Rome. So he did exactly what Julius Caesar did, he did exactly what Selah did, and he took the city hostage and said, you will make me consul, you will give me this executive office. Emergency legislation is rushed through to secure him the necessary credentials.

Octavian will of course have to be paired with someone as the rules of the Republic dictate. But his co-consul will be Quintus Padeus, his cousin, a fellow beneficiary of Caesar's will, a yes man to nod through everything that Octavian decrees. Teenage Octavian is now Consul of Rome. His armies now the armies of the Senate. And they too will go north. By the middle of 43 BC, Anthony's unauthorized army is laying siege to Decimus and his liberators at the city of Mutina, today's Modena.

When Octavian's forces arrive, Anthony's assumption is that they've come to lend a hand, but it's not the case. Octavian's MO is to take Anthony down. What transpires is a Mexican standoff. Octavian versus Anthony versus the Liberators. To the two big beasts, Anthony and Octavian, it swiftly dawns that this is nonsensical. Whatever the Senate may have decreed,

it's blindingly obvious that they should have no business fighting each other. Better to pool resources. It's not just a case of wiping out the liberators. Together, in all matters, they would be unstoppable. If Anthony can assure Octavian's political legitimacy, and his inheritance, Octavian can guarantee Anthony wealth, power, and military might. They should partner up. In fact, they should go jazz and make it a trio. For there was also a fellow named Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, Anthony's fellow general,

a key ally of Julius Caesar, who could prove pretty useful too. Lepidus has been slaughtering liberators left, right and center. He's currently in hot pursuit, of them across Gaul proper. It's where he will end up slaying Decimus. Make him a partner, albeit a junior one, and they can divvy up Rome's overseas territories between the three of them. There's more than enough to go around. As every Roman knows, it's through governorship of the dominions that personal fortune and power can be amassed. Let them look after the wider Roman world. The Senate can get back to fixing potholes. In the three-way split, at least in its initial format, Anthony will take the cis-alpine gall he sewed covets.

Lepidus is thrown southern Gaul and Hispania. Octavian will get North Africa, in addition to overseeing things on the home front. It's the foundation of what is known as the Second Triumvirate. The entire Roman universe is to be governed in executive fashion by just three men. Caesar famously was the architect of the first triumvirate, an arrangement between three generals come statesmen, himself, Pompey, and Krasis. But there was a crucial difference second time around. Again, a case of Octavia not wishing to repeat his predecessors' mistakes.

The first gang of three was an unofficial alignment, a borderline kleptocracy. The second iteration is going to come with official endorsement. The second triumvirate passes into law on November the 27th, 43 BC. For five years, it gives the triumvirate's supreme law-making powers, without requiring approval from the Senate. It's an oligarchy, a three-headed dictatorship by any other name. And it is this date that many cite as the formal end of the Roman Republic. It comes with essentially dictatorial powers that are shared in three-year-old. ways. So anything that the Triambiers did was legal during this five-year period and then it gets

extended, as long as it fit under the rubric of pacifying the republic. So this means they're allowed to appoint all other elected officials. There are elections. They pick the other elected officials. They're able to make any law that they want. They're able to repeal any legislation that they do not like. The rise of Octavian has been nothing short of spectacular. Suddenly, Octavian is faced with an opportunity you could say he's not ready for, and the burden of being put in the crosshairs of any number of powerful figures. What is surprising is that he copes. He does very quickly manifest considerable amount of ruthlessness and enormous amount of self-interest. he manages to set up some quite effective alliances, never holding to them very long.

I mean, it's tempting to say, you know, Octavian is really not someone anyone should have trusted. He's a kind of devious weasel. To Octavian, this is all simply a means to an end. He can now get down to the thing that's been burning inside him all this while, driving him on for the past year and a half. something he will deliver with a venom and fury the likes of which history is yet to witness. Revenge. If there's any doubts as to his zeal, on the first anniversary of Caesar's death, Octavian orders 300 liberator sympathizers to be rounded up and butchered, to be stabbed to death in the exact same manner. He also puts the wheels in motion as per popular demand of having Caesar declared

a god which makes him the son of a god a useful calling card. Octavian, now that he's a consul, has a law passed called the Lexpedia, which allows him to preside as judge and jury over all of Caesar's assassins in absentia, and you'll be shocked to hear that he finds all of them guilty and declares all of them enemies of Rome, and no one stops him, but the Senate isn't happy about this, because this is mass trials without opponents being able to defend themselves. Of the Liberator Big Fish, Decimus is already dead.

Brutus and Cassius can be dealt with when the time comes. In the meantime, Octavian will devour the minnows, the cowardly Liberator fanboys, the ones who didn't have the good sense to flee. And it will begin with a process known as prescription. It was last implemented by the Roman dictator Sula,

a legitimization of mob. rule. Quite simply, it involves the posting of lists or prescriptions, which name those people decreed to be fifth colonists. The public are invited, for financial reward, to kill those on the lists, to attack them with impunity. Rome is about to descend into a demonic feeding frenzy, as armed mobs take to the streets and neighbor turns upon neighbor, often slaughtering the innocent erroneously. New lists are added daily. Hundreds of names are prescribed. And the process won't stop until every last liberator is wiped out. If every revolution must have a terror, this is it. And it was essentially legalized sanctioned mass murder of political enemies. They wrote these names

in red letters on white boards and posted them in the forum. If you were walking through the forum and saw your name on that list that meant you were designated formally an enemy of the state and there was nothing you could do about it. There was no appeals process. Anyone was rewarded monetarily for killing you and bringing your severed head to the tribe of yours, your wife, your grandfather, your slave, your child. And if you hit a loved one, your name went on the list next. So there was forced terror and forced murder. And we know by different counts that hundreds, if not thousands, died. It was the most extensive prescriptions that Rome had ever seen. The forum, crucible of philosophical debate, is transformed into something else entirely.

This really took it to 11. As we have to imagine the Roman Forum with just hikes, heads on pikes everywhere, the message was clear that these people were in charge and there was nothing you could do about it. Among those names featuring in the final rounds is one Marcus Tullius Cicero. Now in his 60s, Cicero had chosen to stay put at his villa down the coast. The pen, he assumed, would be mightier than the sword. But on December the 8th as the sun rises, Cicero's severed head and hands are found nailed to the rostra, the speaker's platform. Octavian had pleaded in Cicero's favour, but Anthony had carried the day.

Cicero's hands had been demanded as an extra. They were the ones that had authored those damning philippics. And this message was that anyone that speaks against the Triangiers, not only acts, but speaks against them, will end up this way. As a crowd gathers, Anthony's wife, Fulvia, inspects the grisly items with a nonchal curiosity, before removing a hairpin and stabbing it into the old man's tongue. Do you wish you could just hit skip on the worst parts of your life? You know, the same way you can skip an ad? I get it.

I'm Siaya and I live in Ice Cove. I've made some questionable decisions that didn't end up the way I planned. And today, I'm still figuring it out. Somehow things usually get worse before they get better. Apparently, that's how I roll. So bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride. Stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays on CBC Gem. I'm Julie Andrews, and it is my great pleasure to return to Jane Austen stories.

This time, I'll be reading another beloved classic Emma. Join me as we step into the village of Highbury, home to the handsome and clever Emma Woodhouse. But as new visitors arrive and quiet mysteries unfold, what will our strong-willed heroine learn, both of the secrets of others and of her own heart's desires? Listen to Jane Austen's stories now wherever you get your podcasts. There's still one part of the Roman world, over which the triumph for it doesn't have personal control, the eastern Mediterranean. The east has been growing in importance to Rome, economically and strategically. It is in Asia Minor where Brutus and Cassius are currently held up, trying to raise an army to take Rome back.

Time for the triumph for it to saddle up. In some ways you could say Octavian has got. a duty, especially if he's going to claim to be Caesar's adopted son, but even as his heir, there is an expectation that he must avenge his father. So he is certainly looking to launch a war against Brutus Cassius. It's also, of course, the case that no one wants to leave Greece in their hands, but primarily, you could say, it's about eliminating competition. This segment of the war will climax in Greece, near the Macedonian city of Philippi. Triumvirate forces on one side, liberators on the other.

Across a three-week period in October 42 BC, the two armies hammer away in two major engagements. The combined battle is fought on a colossal scale, with around 200,000 men involved. It is the triumvirates legions that carry the day. the day. Though in truth, Octavian can only claim a cameo role. It's Anthony and a gripper who do all the heavy lifting. We get conflicting stories about who does what. So the Anthony line is he does absolutely everything. Octavian is, you know, often he's tent somewhere being ill and useless. The victory is his, whereas we get stories from Octavian's side that actually he does play a critical role. And again, where exactly the truth lies is really difficult to discern.

What is certain is that a gripper is already emerging as one of the great generals of the age. He is, also remarkable for a Roman, a man with no apparent ego, content to let Octavian bask in a reflected glory. Because Octavian just isn't a soldier. If you need him to fall into a ditch, he can do that. In one famous battle, he was asleep and a gripper. Gripa gave orders not to wake him up. There's nothing he can contribute.

Let's just finish the battle first. And in the Roman world, not being a soldier, not being able to win military glory, should have been a major weakness. Because the only way round it was to find a military genius capable of winning all your battles, but giving you the credit. So he did.

And it remains just almost ridiculous. It's not just Octavian found a friend who was a soldier. Agrippa is Julius Caesar's only real rival for the title of greatest soldier in the history of the Roman world. The man just did not lose, but he never takes the credit. The Battle of Philippi, in keeping with Rome's ponchant for melodrama, comes complete with its own tragicomic finale. Cassius, believing Brutus to be dead, and their cause lost, orders his slave to help kill him, with the very same dagger he had used to murder Caesar.

Brutus, as it turns out, is still alive, that when he hears that Cassius has committed suicide, he ritually falls on his own sword. At Farsilus, when Brutus was captured in the field fighting for Pompey, Caesar had granted him clemency. No small irony given what was to happen later. There will be no such reverence from the cold-eyed Octavian, the baby-faced assassin.

Brutus's body is decapitated, his severed head dispatched back to Rome, another bloody thing happening on its way to the forum. A twist of fate will spare Brutus the indignity, however. When the ship carrying it is hit by a storm, his head is lost overboard. Octavian and Antony can now secure their holdings in the east, in particular Egypt, which, with its fertile Nile Delta, has grown fabulously wealthy. Though not an official colony, Egypt is very much a client state, the supplier of Rome's grain, its breadbasket. Unfortunately, there's a new problem. Raiders based in Sicily are attacking the shipping lines. Many of their vessels come from Rome's own navy,

and are under the control of a liberator-sympathizing general, one giving sanctuary to the triumph of its enemies. His name is Sextus Pompeius, Pompey's son. That preceding civil war, it seems, the one fought between Caesar and Pompey is not yet over. During the prescriptions, he let it be know far and wide that he would harbor any victim that could make it to the shores. And these aren't just liberators that were being prescribed. This was anyone that was wealthy enough and that could cause the Triangar's problems. He'd send boats to the shore of Italy to pick them up. He'd off for them haven, and he saved countless lives in this way. That's a really powerful position because, of course, the city of Rome depends on grain

imports. It depends on ships being able to get through. Sextus Pompeius, he doesn't own a lot of character, but he's got a really strong chokehold on what the other three can do. He is a menace who must be eradicated. On the other hand, hand, which tells you something about the whole setup, he's also a potentially powerful ally. Not least because there's already a suggestion of dirty dealing. That Lepidus, the junior triumphier, is somehow involved. He's being paid a kickback. The triumvirate refuses to air its laundry in public.

Privately it buys off, Sextus, and ushers Leopardus into a comfortable retirement. But when Sextus, unwisely, resumes raiding again, Octavian does what is now standard practice. He sends for a gripper. After a chase across the Mediterranean, Sextus is cornered at Miletus on the western coast of modern-day Turkey. The summary execution follows. Agrippa's experience with naval warfare will soon come in very handy. Though barely into his 30s, Octavian is already looking to secure his legacy. At around 20, he'd been married briefly to a young woman named Claudia. It lasts mere months. Claudia was the daughter of Fulvia, whom Anthony would later marry. It had been a transactional

arrangement on the part of their families. In 40 BC, Claudia makes way for Mrs. Octavian No. 2, Scribonia. It's another political union. Scrobonia is 12 years older than Augustus, and with children from a previous marriage. They're an unhappy couple. Just a year in, on the very day that she gives birth to their daughter, Julia, in case of job done, Octavian divorces her, citing her irritable disposition. He's had eyes on someone else for quite a while. Her name is Libya Drusilla.

Unfortunately, Libya happens to be the wife of a senator, Tiberius Claudius Nero. But with Octavian, as we shall learn, there isn't a problem that can't be fixed. He strong-armed Senator Tiberius into divorcing Livia while she's six months pregnant. Three days after the baby is delivered, Octavian and Livia are married. Livia is often portrayed as the power behind the throne, the manipulative Lady Macbeth. She is, without question, one of the great Roman matriarchs, becoming. eventually the first Roman empress, one whose many rivals seemed to come to strange inexplicable

ends. But theirs is a genuine love match. The marriage will endure for over 50 years. One thing to know is that the Romans were very calm about divorce. Divorce was something that was pretty common. It wasn't necessarily ideal. There were all sorts of ideals about women who'd only ever been married to one husband, but the practical reality was that elite Romans were getting married and divorced all the time, and there was not a social stigma that came with it In fact, a woman who had been married previously and had had children for another husband was actually a quite attractive spouse because her fertility was proven. To cement the dynasty, Octavian sees that his own sister, Octavia, one of the Octavius,

is married to Mark Anthony. But the feel-good buzz won't last, for history is about to repeat itself, both as tragedy and farce. While nailing down their territorial acquisitions, Anthony bases himself in Asia Minor in modern-day Turkey. It's there one day in 40 BC at the port of Tarsus that he finds himself gazing over the estuary of the River Sidnus out across the Mediterranean. There he sees a ship appear. As it draws nearer, he can see it's a huge vessel, a magnificent one. Closer still and with the sun glinting on it, it seems to be made of, or at least coated with gold. As it enters the

harbor onlookers are entranced by the steady beat of a drum. The swish of the oars pulled by its galley slaves. It's sailed up from Egypt, Anthony is in thought. As it lays down its anchor, he's invited aboard. At the stern, at the far end of a wide deck, is a tent, a marquee, strung with the finest silks and muslin, and inside, reclining on a couch, being panned. hampered by handmaidens is the ship's VIP passenger, Queen Cleopatra. Professor Joyce Tilsley. She knows that he's been associated with the god Dionysus. So she decides to go as ISIS, one sort of Dionysus.

So she turns up in the full rig, and there's obviously nothing like it. Apparently, it's a gilded ship. There's silver and gold all around, and she's dressed in the robes of ISIS. It's so a colourful dress with a black mantle over it and a crown. And she's got little boys dressed as cherubs and there's music playing and there's incense. And she's sort of entertained him like he's never been entertained before. Beyond the theatre, hers is a diplomatic mission. She has come to present the case for her son, Cesarian.

Now seven years old, he co-rules with her as Fair Otholomey the 15th. He is Caesar's biological child, she reminds Anthony, his sole undisputed male offspring. He too, by rights, should have a stake in Rome's new order. Her words barely register. Anthony's sense of reason is about to go right out of the window. Just like Caesar before him, he is instantly and utterly smitten. At one jiggle of her hips, Anthony has packed up her. his bags, up sticks, and moved his whole operation to Alexandria. There, Queen Cleopatra

the Seventh of Egypt and Mark Anthony Triumvir of Rome commence a legendary affair. Whether Cleopatra is as staggeringly beautiful as is often suggested as anyone's guess, it may well be the case. But she is too a woman of supreme intellect, someone who could run rings round any Roman warrior hunk who fancied his chances. The reason why both Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony found her so stimulating. She doesn't need to be beautiful. She's clever and she's very, very rich. She really doesn't need to be beautiful as well.

I don't think that it was her beauty alone, but caused these two men to fall in love with her. We're told that she had a beautiful voice, which I like the idea of, that the way she spoke was very, very attractive. Everybody tells us she was clever, and we don't just get that from the Roman authors. There's also a tradition of writing about Keopatra by the Arab writers. They remember her not as a beauty like we do, but as a clever woman who wrote books and did scientific experiments and so on. Plutarch tells us she could speak lots of barbarian languages. And she seems to also, if we're looking for signs of cleverness, she does seem to be able to read other people very well.

She seemed to get the measure of Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony. She doesn't seem to read Octavian in quite the same way. Back in Rome, where Octavian has been mining the shop, Polite society is aghast But this sordid tempterus Should have seduced a second great Roman Another pillar of the world, as Shakespeare would put it, transformed into a strumpet's fool.

For Octavian, this thing just got personal. Anthony, remember, is married to his sister. Nobody goes against the family. The news gets worse. Anthony is now running the Eastern Territories as his own personal empire, disconnected from the Roman mothership. In 36 BC, he even leads his private legions on a mission on Cleopatra's behalf against the Parthians. Ultimately, it's a failure, though Anthony does expand the Roman presence into Armenia. The bad news, again, is that he installs his son, Alexander Helios, on the Armenian throne,

just one of the three illegitimate children he will have with the Egyptian queen. And, heresy of heresies, he stages his triumph not in Rome, but in Alexandria. Stories filter back from Egypt, of Anthony drunk on his own powers, or more often are not just plain drunk, have a life descended into debauchery. You ask someone to picture Mark Anthony, and you picture a hedonist, probably with clear Papra looking like Elizabeth Taylor somewhere nearby. That's what happens when you lose a war against one of the greatest propaganda experts in the history of humanity.

Almost everything we now hear about Antony is Octavian's propaganda machine at work. Like Colonel Kurtz, deep in the jungle, a great military leader has gone rogue. He must be terminated with extreme prejudice. Though Rome being Rome, and Octavian being Octavian, there must be a legal pretext. In 32 BC, Octavian storms into the temple of Vesta,

repository of Rome's important documentation. Pushing past its guardians, the Vestal Virgins, he seizes Antony's last will and testament. It is a highly illegal act, but no matter. As he reads it aloud to the Senate, it confirms all that has been suspected that Anthony has chosen to be buried in Alexandria, alongside Cleopatra,

and that their children will be the inheritors of their joint fortunes with Caesarian the new king of Rome. To cap it all, Anthony and Cleopatra have declared themselves gods. We don't have any version of Antony's story. If we did, it did not survive, and it certainly was overwritten by Octavian story. The only thing that we can say for certain is accurate, is that it served Octavian's interests that these two people be represented as unhinged.

Whatever Octavian reads out, whether it is genuinely Anthony's will or a complete fabrication, it has achieved the desired result. War is declared on Ptolemaic Egypt. And with both sides launched full scale against each other, they end up once again in that familiar battleground, Greece. This September, on the Noiser Podcast Network, On Jane Austen's stories, Dame Julie Andrews continues to bring Austin's beloved classic Emma to life. On short history of, we're in medieval England for the fascinating story of the Peasants' Revolt, and 25 years on from 9-11 were on the ground in New York City. On real survival stories, we're on a luscious winery in northwest America,

and venturing into a missile silo in the dead of night, as the US is threatened with nuclear disaster. and in Sherlock Holmes short stories, get two episodes each week as Hugh Bonneville explores Conan Doyle's great novel, A Study in Scarlet. Get all of these shows and more early and add free on Noiser Plus. The defeat of Anthony is not a slam dunk for Octavian. To beat Anthony, Octavian must build another huge army. By summer 31 BC he has amassed over 200,000 men. Though importantly, this campaign will not end in a land battle.

On September 2nd, 31 BC, with his army outnumbered and bottled up near the Greek port of Action, Anthony makes a decision. He has 25,000 men and 300 ships at his disposal. He will break out and make for the open sea. And it is there that Octavian, or rather a gripper's navy, will hold him below the world. waterline. At the height of the battle, as we've already seen, Cleopatra's flagship, perhaps with its crew fearing for her safety, steers away. Anthony follows. Or so goes the conventional narrative. History has it that the sea battle starts and the ships come out and Octavians drawing them out

further and further out to sea. And the parts where Mark Anthony is commanding, that's going well, but the other two waves of ships are not working out well at all and they turn back. And eventually Cleopatra just hoists the sails and sets off for Egypt. And he abandons his big ship and goes onto a little one and follows her and joins her. But that seems such an odd story. I suppose you would say this is so obviously propaganda suggesting, you know, Anthony is so unmanly that he legs it. But anyway, Anthony's and Cleopatra's fleet.

is roundly defeated. They flee to Egypt. Octavian sends his troops to land in Egypt and encounters by this point relatively little resistance. It will take nearly a year, but by the summer of 30 BC, Octavian's forces led as ever by Agrippa were besieging Cleopatra's palace. With his army Army destroyed, Anthony and a handful of loyalists barricade themselves inside. On August 1st, with Octavian's men laying siege, the end inevitable, word reaches Anthony that elsewhere in the palace complex, Cleopatra has taken her own life. In despair, he grabs his Gladius, his short stabbing sword, and, with shades of Cassius, the help of a slave, leans forward onto its upturned point. He lets gravity do the rest,

spearing himself through the midriff. But he's failed to kill himself outright. He was under the impression that Cleopatra had already killed herself. When he's done that, he's done the deed, and he's bleeding and he's fatally wounded, but he's not dead, another messenger seems to come and say, actually, no, she's not dead at all. So he is carried to her, and she has barricaded herself into what we call her mausoleum. It's obviously some sort of two or three-story structure where she's got all her treasure stored in there as well and he is hauled in through the windows.

He's sort of lifted up and he dies in her arms. Cleopatra, 39 years of age, must now face the inevitable. With Anthony gone, most likely what lies ahead is captivity, a humiliating parade through the streets of Rome, probably naked, followed by a ritual public execution. Versions of this story vary. In fact, it will take another nine days for events to play out, but by popular interpretation,

Cleopatra sends for a basket of figs. In it has been concealed at her request, a deadly snake, also known as an asp, most likely an Egyptian cobra. Thrusting her hand into the basket, she holds it there until the snake has bitten, then reclines on her. own crypt, waiting for the end. Her two handmaidens do the same and lay at her feet.

Did she poison herself with a snake? It seems unlikely, but it seems likely that she poisoned herself. She did write a treatise on toxicology that we're aware of. We are told in some of the sources that she actually would experiment on prisoners as well. I don't know how true that is. The scene of her dying with her handmaids there is a very, very Greek way of committing suicide, particularly as a woman, you would want to make sure somebody else was there with you so that they could make sure that your clothing wasn't disordered so that you were presented in a really decent way. So you would commit suicide first,

and then they would sort you out, and then they would commit suicide after you. It seems unlikely that she killed herself with a snake bite because it's just so difficult to do. In whatever form it takes, it is this tableau of death that supposedly greets Octavian's men as they enter the mausoleum. Some alleged that the suicide story is bogus, that it was Roman troops who killed Cleopatra, running her through with their swords.

An act that is said to have infuriated Octavian, depriving him of the public humiliation of Cleopatra he'd craved. We shall never know. Within hours, young Cesarian is found too. The youth, now 17, had been hiding elsewhere in the palace. For Octavian, there is no compunction at putting him to the sword. There must be no loose ends. He needs to be the only conceivable male heir to Caesar.

So even an unacknowledged bastard needs to be killed, because that would otherwise muddy the waters. No one's ever questioned Octavian's ruthlessness. when he thinks something is necessary. He's very good at masterminding his image, how he gets remembered. But if something ugly needs to be done, he's never shied away from doing it. Cesarian is a loose piece that needs to be put away. Later they locate Marcus Antonius Antilus,

Anthony's 16-year-old son with Fulvia. He had the misfortune to be visiting. He is found clinging to a statue of Julius Caesar, in vain hope of murder. mercy. None is forthcoming. He is dragged off to be beheaded. Octavian's revenge is now complete. All rivals have been eliminated. As a coda to the invasion, Egypt is formerly annexed as a Roman province. And Octavian, 13 years after the murder of Julius Caesar, his great uncle, his adoptive father, has guaranteed himself supreme authority over the

entire Roman world. In the next episode, with his enemies vanquished, Octavian returns to a hero's welcome. From there, he will consolidate personal rule over Rome's vast dominions, dismantling the old republic. The forning senate declares him the most august of Caesar's, an emperor, though the lack of and air once again will plunge Rome into crisis. That's next time in the final part of the Augustus story. You can listen to the final part of the Augustus story right now, without waiting and without ads by joining Noyser Plus. Click the link in the episode description,

or head to Noyser.com forward slash subscriptions to find out more. This September on the Noyser podcast network, On Jane Austen's stories, Dame Julie Andrews continues to bring Austin's beloved classic Emma to life. On short history of, we're in medieval England for the fascinating story of the Peasants' Revolt, and 25 years on from 9-11 were on the ground in New York City. On real survival stories, we're on a luscious winery in Northwest America, and venturing into a missile silo in the dead of night, as the US is threatened with nuclear disaster.

And in Sherlock Holmes short stories, get two episodes each week as Hugh Bonneville explores Conan Doyle's great novel, A Study in Scarlet. Get all of these shows and more early and add free on Noiser Plus.