Octavian, Mark Antony, and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium

The proper names didn't come through capitalized, I changed maybe two, then Notepad went cuckoo. Anyway, this is the text auto-generated by YouTube. I edited farceless into Pharsalus.

Transcript
0:15 and now it's my great pleasure to introduce our speaker dr brian rose with whom i know many of you are already
0:21 familiar thanks to his truly tireless efforts on behalf of both the penn museum and the field of archaeology as a
0:27 whole brian is the james b pritchett professor of archaeology in the department of classical studies here at penn and the
0:33 peter c ferry curator in charge of the mediterranean section of the museum he was also my predecessor's deputy
0:40 director and during his time in this position uh brian actually started created the greats lecture series which
0:46 has turned out to be such a success uh brian has degrees from haverford college and columbia university and has
0:52 excavated extensively particularly in turkey at the sites of aphrodisias troy and Gordion
0:58 this last being one of the museum's major ongoing excavations in addition to excavating brian
1:05 publishes assiduously and prolifically and with an incredible range of excavation reports to his name including
1:12 several of the final reports on troy which are either authored or edited by him and among his many publications his
1:18 book the archaeology of greek and roman troy provides an extensive introduction to all that is known about the site in
1:23 those periods brown was also the curator of a major exhibit of archaeological materials from
1:30 turkey the golden age of midas which ran from february november 2016 to
1:36 great success and acclaim um and his outrage
1:41 outrage at outreach activities there's no outrage activities with brent uh his outreach activities and service to the
1:48 profession are similarly extensive ranging from the kind of presentation we're about to hear from him tonight to
1:54 the education of u.s servicemen about ancient near eastern archaeology and history and the importance of cultural
1:59 heritage preservation awareness he was the president of the archaeological institute of america from
2:05 2007 to 2011 and was awarded the gold medal for distinguished archaeological achievement by the selfsame aia in 2015.
2:13 he is now in his sixth year as president of the american research institute in turkey and was named to the monk to the
2:20 prestigious montgomery fellowship at dartmouth in fall 2021
2:26 so i know we're all looking forward to hearing from brian about great revolutionaries octavian mark
2:31 anthony and cleopatra at the battle of actium so please join me in welcoming him
2:37 [Applause]
2:45 all right thank you steve and thanks to all of you for coming today both virtually
2:50 and physically it's wonderful not to lecture to an empty auditorium i have the pleasure today of speaking
2:57 about the battle of actium which was the last great naval battle in antiquity and
3:03 also the beginning of what we think of as the roman empire starting with octavian or augustus as he would later
3:10 be called but the battle of actium comes at the end of nearly a century of civil
3:16 war civil war it certainly was the battle of actium between octavian and mark anthony but this follows a whole
3:22 chain of civil wars starting in the late second century bc and continuing up to
3:28 the battle of actium in 31 bc so i'll take you through the history of the
3:33 civil wars over the course of that century and then i'll try to explain how the
3:39 battle of actium and egypt transformed the cityscape of rome itself
3:45 first i will give you a remedial course very short remedial
3:50 course in the history of rome for those of you who don't spend your days thinking about it as i do
3:57 the romans believe that they were descended from the trojans from the trojan hero aeneas who escaped the
4:03 burning city of troy prior to its destruction in the early 12th century bc
4:09 and gradually made his way from northwest asia minor where troy is located to central italy and you see
4:17 here a coin of augustus with aeneas his father and his son in the process of
4:22 leaving troy so at origin the romans were trojans
4:28 and then after aeneas founds a new city which is not rome it's another city
4:33 called livinium in the same area we have a period of 400 years prior to the
4:40 actual founding of rome by romulus traditionally dated to april 21st 753 bc
4:48 and of course you're seeing the famous group of the wolf with romulus and remus underneath
4:54 which was set up in the roman forum around 300 bc so aeneas and romulus are
5:00 at the origin of the story of the romans and of rome itself we can divide rome
5:06 into four periods archaic rome from the foundation date of 753 to the end of the
5:13 period of rome of the kings in 509 so a period of roughly 250 years
5:20 then republican rome starting in 509 lasting for about 500 years until the
5:27 battle of actium which is what we're going to be speaking of tonight occurred in 31 bc and again that starts the roman
5:35 empire or historians technically start the roman empire at that date which
5:40 would last for just over 300 years until 3 30 a.d
5:45 until constantine in the early 4th century moves the capital of the empire
5:51 from rome to constantinople now istanbul and that will begin the byzantine empire
5:57 which will last for 1100 years until the fall of the city in 1453.
6:04 rome constantinople therefore was regarded as the second rome and
6:09 ironically after the fall of constantinople moscow would begin calling itself the third
6:16 rome very much in the news these days in the course of the republic
6:22 the fourth third second and early first centuries bc rome expands throughout the
6:28 mediterranean gradually encompassing northern europe sorry um the iberian
6:36 peninsula north africa as well as greece and asia minor
6:42 the wars in asia minor at carthage you're familiar with under the rubric punic wars and it was during
6:50 the second punic war when rome fights the great hero hannibal that scipio
6:55 africanus the great general of rome emerges triumphant over the carthaginian
7:00 forces and again gradually every every um
7:06 part every component of the mediterranean comes under roman control so by about a hundred bc the
7:13 mediterranean is controlled by rome and you start seeing victory temples
7:20 set up throughout rome in the late fourth third second and first centuries
7:26 bc we call these minubial temples because they're constructed with the spoils
7:31 that have been taken from the battlefield from the enemy cities these are majestic temples
7:38 built initially of travertine limestone
7:43 and tufa and as of the second century bc of marble which had to be imported from
7:49 greece and asia minor we only have one of these minubial temples one of these
7:54 victory temples surviving intact which you see here on the banks of the tiber
7:59 the so-called temple of hercules victor some of you are familiar with it from the audrey hepburn gregory peck film
8:06 roman holiday audrey hepburn rides a vespa around it but this is representative of the kind of victory
8:13 temples that the romans would typically construct immediately following their victories
8:19 so it's 100 bc ish and the entire mediterranean is under roman control
8:26 those who were in the elite of rome are looking good and feeling prosperous
8:31 but the veterans were not many of the soldiers rome soldiers were killed
8:37 on the battlefield and what happened to the farms that were part of their property
8:43 generally the elite of rome would buy the farms and the lands at a discount
8:50 rate really at almost as if in a fire sale and the wives and children often ended up in
8:58 poverty they would lose the farm because the wealthy would not keep the family of the former veterans on the farm they
9:05 would staff it with slaves and the wives of the now dead soldiers
9:10 and their children were left to fend for themselves so there's a growing divide between the
9:18 elite and the plebeians in rome were the the rich and the poor as we go through the
9:24 civil wars of the first century bc it will be very much a war between
9:30 the populists if you will the left and the elite the conservatives on the right
9:37 plush plus shows we see this continuing until the present day and into this situation
9:44 where the poor were experiencing injustice after injustice in their minds
9:50 stepped a tribune named tiberius gracas who became tribune in 133 bc
9:58 and came from an incredibly prestigious family he was the grandson of scipio
10:03 africanus the hero in the wars against hannibal in the late third century bc
10:09 and he began to propose a redistribution of the lands that had been bought that
10:15 had been in the course of acquisition by the elites so he wanted to put a limit
10:21 on the amount of property that the elites could own and wanted to redistribute public land to the poor
10:29 farmers to those who were in the minority as far as the elites were concerned
10:35 this was a radical revolution very much a revolution
10:40 in social policy and the senate was furious many of the
10:45 senators of course were the wealthy landowners who were going to be deprived of the lands that they had acquired from
10:52 these impover impoverished farmers if the legislation of tiberius gracos went
10:57 through and so he was in short order club to death on the capitoline hill i'm showing
11:05 you the capitoline hill here with its trademark feature the temple of jupiter optimus maximus
11:12 and his supporters 300 of his supporters were killed and their bodies were thrown
11:18 in the tiber river which reportedly turned red with their blood
11:23 so the reforms that he had hoped to incorporate into roman society
11:29 were unsuccessful however 10 years later his brother gaius
11:34 became tribune and tried to do the same thing even more
11:39 in an even more comprehensive way than his brother had tried to do so land
11:45 redistribution but also a major infrastructure program which we've just seen in the news new
11:52 roads and bridges as well as subsidized grain subsidized military equipment and
11:57 again redistribution of public land to the poor once again the senate was infuriated by
12:04 this and a civil war developed in short order
12:10 grock has committed suicide and 3 000 of his supporters were killed and their
12:16 bodies once again thrown in the tiber river which again turned red with their blood it was at
12:23 that moment after the death of gaius gracchus and his partisans that the
12:29 senate and in particular the consul opius decides to build in the forum a temple
12:35 to concord celebrating the peace and harmonious relationships that exist
12:40 between left and right between the populace and the conservatives now that was fictive there was no harmonious
12:48 relationship between them they were trying to kill each other and had succeeded in doing so
12:53 but this is what one would call truthiness it's not necessarily true
12:59 it's just marketed in a certain way and indeed after the temple of concord
13:04 went up on the western side of the roman forum which you see here in reconstruction and here in an
13:10 axonometric drawing according to plutarch someone set up a sign
13:16 in front of the temple of concord saying a work of discord produces a temple of concord so this new temple enjoyed a
13:24 very frosty reception among the romans because they could see that it was
13:29 in effect an architectural lie celebrating a union that didn't exist
13:36 meanwhile there were plenty of foreign wars during this period one in particular that was especially
13:41 cataclysmic involving the king mithridates of pontus mithra mithridades
13:47 vi who traced his descent from the royal line of the persians on one side and
13:54 from alexander the great on the other side so he was a kind of amalgamation of east
14:01 and west and in tracing his descent from the macedonian royal family he was able
14:06 to trace his descent back to hercules so you see a portrait of mithridates here
14:12 wearing the lion skin of hercules on his head as his ancestor alexander the great
14:18 would also do from time to time mithridates wanted to create a new kingdom in the east that would rival
14:26 that of rome and which would be based around the black sea encompassing the
14:31 north side of the black sea including the crimean peninsula and
14:36 regions that are still experiencing armed conflict even now as
14:41 we sit here in this auditorium since this is southern ukraine and then joining that to asia minor and
14:49 other territories in the eastern mediterranean on one day reportedly according to the
14:55 ancient historians over 80 000 romans and italians were killed by the
15:00 partisans of mithridates vi so it was necessary for the romans to
15:05 act in order to protect roman interests in the east in particular in the region
15:11 around the black sea and entering into this situation were two of the most powerful men of the
15:18 early first century bc marius who whose portrait in antiquity is is still
15:24 a question mark so i'm showing you an early 19th century painting of him marius was a populist
15:31 and then sulla this is an actual coin of the 80s bc showing an equestrian statue
15:37 of salah that stood in the roman forum he was a conservative he was on the senatorial side they are among the
15:44 strongest men they are the strongest men in the first two decades of the first
15:49 century bc salah was given the roman command to go
15:55 off and fight mithridates vi but when sallah was out of rome marius engineered
16:01 the transfer of that command to another to another general
16:07 and sola infuriated marched on the city of rome as caesar would do 40 years later no one
16:14 had ever no roman had ever marched on the city of rome before and taken it by force
16:20 but that is what sulla does in in 88 bc marching on rome declaring marius an
16:26 enemy of the state he had managed to escape before sula entered the city
16:32 and there were mass executions of those who were partisans of marius
16:40 meanwhile sulla then takes the command back goes off to asia
16:47 minor to fight mithridates of pontus and relatively quickly scores a victory it
16:53 wouldn't last but for the moment it was a victory during the period in which solo was gone
17:00 marius came back to rome declared salah an enemy of the state and executed the partisans of salah
17:08 cutting off their hands and displaying the severed hands on the rostra the
17:14 speaker's platform in the roman forum i'll often speak of the rostra in the
17:19 course of our lecture tonight rastra takes its name from the shipbeaks
17:25 these prows of ships that were inserted into the rostra already in the late fourth century bc as
17:32 a signal of the roman naval victory in this case a naval victory over the sam
17:38 knights in the sam knight wars of the late 4th century bc but you need to imagine these severed hands being
17:45 displayed on the rostra as a warning to the people of rome not to
17:51 subscribe to the political policies of salah or to sallah
17:56 himself salah meanwhile after his victory comes
18:01 back to rome and in 82 six years after he marched on rome he
18:06 does it again marching on rome taking it again by force and executing the partisans of
18:14 marius marius had already died by this point but his son is still in power uh and
18:20 sulla defeats them taking the severed heads of his enemies and again displaying them on the rostra
18:28 we hear of a particularly gruesome event battle of the colleen gate in 82 bc
18:34 where sula executes 3 000 of the soldiers who had fought with the forces
18:40 of marius and the ancient historians described the screams that could be heard in the senate house as the 3 000
18:47 men are killed their heads cut off and displayed on the rostra
18:52 sulla would die and there would be other in the early 70s but there this period of of conflict
19:01 between left and right between populous and conservatives would continue
19:06 and it would also continue to involve the tribunes like gaius and tiberius
19:12 gracchus one of them is named clodius and in the 50s
19:19 he realized that he could assemble street militias
19:26 of his partisans and get them to attack public monuments
19:32 in order to show the level of power that he wielded
19:37 and so on one occasion in 58 bc he sends his mob
19:43 to the temple of caster and pollux in the roman forum
19:48 and this was a temple where the senate would often meet the senate had a
19:54 specific senate house in the roman forum the so-called curia but they would also meet in other temples from time to time
20:01 so it was a temple that was directly associated with the senate and clodius has them attack
20:08 this senate affiliated complex and tear up the steps
20:14 of the temple later on after clodius is murdered
20:21 his body is carried by his partisans to the roman forum to the senate house to the curia
20:28 which you see here and they use the curia as the pyre for
20:34 the body of clodius so they burn the senate house as they send the body of clodius off into the
20:40 afterlife completely destroyed
20:46 into this fray steps the so-called first triumvirate and now we're getting into
20:52 names that you know well i would say um poppy poppy the great poppy magnus
20:59 who had served under salah and who was
21:04 the first man in rome to build a permanent stone theater the theater of poppy to which we will return in a few
21:10 minutes marcus licenius crassus who was famous
21:16 for having been victorious in the war against spartacus the third slave war or
21:22 the third civil war you're all familiar with spartacus judging by the age range in this
21:28 audience from the kirk douglas film in the late 1950s he's the one who dispatched spartacus
21:35 and then julius caesar the most famous the man who would become the most famous of these three who was the nephew of
21:42 marius so they didn't all focus on the same political philosophy they were not
21:48 united by political philosophy they were united by their recognition that they
21:53 had complementary strengths and would be stronger as a triumvirate than they would be as separate leaders and they
22:01 divided up much of the roman world poppy taking spain crassus taking syria
22:08 and caesar taking gaul in order to make the triumvirate
22:13 stronger the daughter of caesar was married to pompey this was frequently done
22:20 in the hellenistic kingdoms of the eastern mediterranean it was done throughout the first millennium bc
22:26 actually and into the first millennium a.d to have to um
22:31 to strengthen a political alliance through the marriage of the daughter or son of one of the leaders with the
22:38 daughter or son of one of the other leaders with whom the first leader had formed an alliance and that is the case
22:44 here with poppy and caesar this triumvirate really lasts only for
22:50 seven years and would quickly fall apart after poppy's wife dies pompey's wife this
22:57 daughter of caesar dies and meanwhile crassus moves out of the triumvirate when he is
23:03 killed in what is now southeastern turkey so i'm showing you where crassus goes
23:10 sorry to the to the
23:16 region of the turkish-syrian border the modern town of haran ancient karai
23:23 where crassus begins a battle against the parthians the fiercest foes of the
23:28 romans in 53 bc and suffers a tremendous defeat
23:34 he is killed over a hundred roman standards roman battle flags are taken
23:40 by the parthians back to modern-day iran and so are many of the roman soldiers
23:47 twenty thousand are estimated to have died ten thousand roman soldiers are taken
23:53 prisoner back to parthia western iran today and they stayed there
23:58 for 33 years until augustus initially octavian brought them back and
24:05 some of the soldiers actually committed suicide rather than return to rome think of it you're a roman soldier you've been
24:11 taken at the age of 20 to parthia to western iran you've married a parthian
24:16 woman you've had children who speak the language of parthia they're not speaking latin and you have
24:22 become parthianized and suddenly 33 years later augustus comes and says
24:28 everyone go back to rome and that was simply too much for the soldiers and too much for the families of the
24:34 soldiers but in any event many were lost during this battle that crassus leads
24:39 and with crassus out of the way the first triumvirate quickly unravels
24:46 in short order julius caesar will march on rome against poppy
24:51 in 49 bc doing the same thing that sulla had done nearly four decades earlier
24:58 pompey escapes and there is ultimately a battle in thessaly in central greece the
25:04 battle of [Pharsalus] where pompey's forces are defeated they had set up a naval blockade but caesar's
25:12 forces were successful in negotiating that blockade and getting to central greece
25:18 poppy as i said escapes and goes to egypt where he's hopeful of forming an
25:26 alliance with the egyptian king ptolemy the 13th
25:31 who puts pompey to death and when caesar gets there
25:36 shortly thereafter ptolemy the 13th presents the severed head of poppy to caesar as a sign of his
25:43 allegiance to caesar and caesar was reportedly horrified and gives poppy a roman burial
25:50 with all two honors but in the course of his interaction with ptolemy the 13th in
25:55 alexandria he met cleopatra and they formed their own alliance both
26:02 political and romantic you're seeing here one of the portraits of cleopatra that has survived cleopatra
26:09 vii wearing the royal diadem you will already have noticed that she looks nothing like elizabeth
26:16 taylor in the 1963 film cleopatra nor for that matter to caesar resemble rex
26:22 harrison nor for that matter does mark anthony resemble richard burton but nevertheless they're the ones who have
26:28 made the story widespread at least to north american audiences
26:34 cleopatra would bear a child to caesar the only known biological child of caesar again
26:43 as far as we know this was caesarean so cleopatra names her son caesarion after
26:50 caesar and you see them here presented on one of the reliefs of the temple of hathor at dandera in south central egypt
26:59 so little caesarean here who's born in 48 so 48-47 so he would have been about
27:06 seven or eight years old here and as far as anyone knows as far as cleopatra is concerned she is going to
27:13 raise him to be the successor of caesar after caesar dies which of course
27:21 cleopatra hadn't been counting on she builds a temple to caesar in alexandria
27:27 a temple to the divine caesar because caesar would be the first of the romans
27:32 first of the roman leaders to be deified not exactly the same level as a roman
27:39 god like jupiter or or neptune or mars the title would be
27:45 diwoos d-i-v-u-s but nevertheless it was a considered a
27:50 deification of a human and caesar was then presented as a god especially in
27:55 the eastern mediterranean and this was a temple that celebrated that she put two obelisks at the
28:02 entrance to the new temple complex pulled from an earlier complex that was
28:08 set up by tutmosis iii in the early 15th century this recycling of obelisks is a
28:15 common theme a common device both in antiquity and in the early modern period
28:20 and keep these two obelisks in mind because i'm going to come back to them
28:26 caesar meanwhile once he got back to rome after his uh alliance with cleopatra celebrated a quadruple triumph
28:35 no one had ever done this before celebrating in one fell swoop try up over four different areas
28:42 which would be gaul egypt his victory over ptolemy the 13th
28:47 another victory in central asia minor over the sun of um
28:53 of mithridates vi the man named fornicase and in north africa here where he's really going after the
28:59 partisans of poppy but he presents it as a foreign war against the north african monarch juba
29:08 caesar will after that assume the position of dictator and will hold it
29:13 until his death until his assassination which of course occurred on march 15 44
29:19 bc and the two lead assassins were brutus and cassius and they do the deed
29:25 when the senate is meeting in the theater of poppy they can't meet in the old senate house because that's been
29:31 burned down by the partisans of clodius who have used it as a pyre
29:36 in 52 so it's still under construction that's why the senate has to meet in the theater of pompey and during that
29:43 meeting brutus and cassius plunged their daggers into caesar as do others and caesar is assassinated
29:51 brutus and cassius are forced to leave rome after that and they still strike coins as they move
29:58 off into the eastern mediterranean one of which celebrates their assassination of caesar who is presented as a tyrant
30:06 so you see the two daggers on this coin of brutus and cassius placed on either
30:11 side of the cap of liberty the so-called peleus and then the date when the assassination occurred the ides of march
30:20 march 15th and what they put on the obverse of the coin is the ancestor of
30:26 brutus the original brutus who is the one who defeated the last etruscan king
30:32 of rome in 509 bc and launch the republic so they're being presented as
30:38 democratic heroes and tyrant slayers following the assassination of caesar in
30:43 44. this leads to the creation of the second triumvirate
30:50 three men who come together all of whom are partisans of caesar
30:56 one of them is octavian who is his heir also his adopted son
31:01 and as the adopted son of caesar he was able to claim the title son of a god or
31:08 dewey filius as you see here d-i-v-i-f dewey filius i am the son of a
31:14 god then mark anthony whom you know looking roggishly handsome on this coin
31:22 who was also a strong partisan of caesar and lepidus who was the pontifex maximus the chief
31:29 priest of the roman state they band together and also divide up
31:34 the roman world with octavian taking north africa lepidus taking spain or iberia and
31:42 southern france and mark anthony taking the eastern provinces the eastern
31:47 mediterranean which of course involves egypt
31:53 the three of them will band together against brutus and cassius and their followers at a battle in what is now
32:00 macedonia greek macedonia uh the battle of philippi which occurs in 42 bc brutus
32:07 and cassius as well as their partisans are either killed or captured and these three men now have control in essence of
32:14 the mediterranean as
32:20 the masters of the mediterranean the one thing that united them was the newly deified caesar and so that's the first
32:27 monument they build in rome a temple to the dfi julius caesar the foundations of
32:33 which still stand you see a reconstruction of it here with the inscription diwo yulio so the divine
32:39 julius caesar who was represented as such on his coins this is a
32:45 numismatic evocation of the temple of the divine julius caesar with a star
32:51 burst in the pediment and that's based on a comet that appeared in the sky and was believed to
32:57 have represented the soul of julius caesar rising to the heavens and so that becomes a symbol of the deified julius
33:04 caesar you see it on a coin of octavian here dewey filius again i am the son of a god
33:11 here's the starburst comet of the deified caesar and in case you've missed the point he writes it out on the
33:17 reverse julius caesar is a god dewuss julius
33:25 in order to strengthen the relationship between anthony and octavian again who
33:30 would later take the name augustus there is another dynastic marriage
33:35 so the sister of octavian octavia would whom you see here and also here would
33:43 marry mark anthony and so you see this dynastic coupling on one of the coins
33:49 struck in the east mark anthony octavian and octavia sister of augustus as the dynastic bond
33:58 between the two men it had worked for a little while with caesar and pompey maybe it would work
34:03 again but into this situation once again stepped cleopatra now remember that mark
34:11 anthony is in charge of the eastern provinces which includes egypt so he is moving off to egypt and
34:17 actually taking up residence in alexandria and by cleopatra he will produce three
34:25 children who will be given territories
34:30 belonging to rome in the eastern mediterranean belonging actually to rome and parthia and they weren't um mark
34:38 anthony's to give but nevertheless he carves up the eastern mediterranean and
34:44 in a a ritual called the donations of alexandria hands them out to the children
34:50 of cleopatra and also um his own children although
34:55 cesarion is also included in this donation of alexandria and they begin
35:00 striking coins together with mark anthony on one side and cleopatra on the other
35:07 octavian realizes that mark anthony is setting up a rival kingdom a kingdom
35:13 that was intended to rival rome with caesarea and caesar's son in tow
35:18 which could create serious problems for octavian and for rome
35:24 meanwhile none of these people look anything like the characters in cleopatra okay this is the last poster
35:30 of the 1963 film that i'm going to show you over time the relations between anthony
35:38 and cleopatra deteriorate until they both realize there needs to be a final
35:43 battle that will determine which of them rules the areas that had been in their
35:49 jurisdiction this will take place once again in greece in what is now western greece
35:56 northwestern greece the site of actium a battle that occurs in 31 bc
36:04 this is where anthony brings both his army and his navy and his navy
36:10 includes the ships of cleopatra and so they
36:15 take up residence in the so-called ambrachian gulf just to the east of corfu
36:23 augustus and his faithful lieutenant agrippa meanwhile move across the ionian
36:29 sea to what is now north western greece and
36:34 southern albania and move down where they set up a campsite which will
36:40 ultimately become the city of necopolis city of victory and meanwhile agrippa takes ships across
36:47 the sea right to the point where anthony and cleopatra have their fleet
36:54 there is a major battle that occurs on september 2nd of 31 bc
37:01 and as you can imagine as you know ultimately and um octavian and agrippa
37:06 emerge victorious over the forces of anthony and cleopatra who actually run
37:12 away from the battlefield cleopatra was no fool and could see that things are getting out of control so she and her
37:19 fleet set sail for alexandria and anthony follows her leaving his own
37:25 ships to continue the battle anthony had many many ships many strong
37:31 ships but they were big ships they were difficult to maneuver
37:36 and anthony no longer had enough men to staff them because there were a lot of
37:42 desertions on anthony's side augustus or octavian had waged a very successful propaganda campaign
37:48 saying you romans who fight for anthony you are not romans you were fighting for a foreign queen an egyptian queen
37:56 against the side of rome and that worked with many of the soldiers who were partisans of anthony
38:02 they deserted there was also disease that had spread among anthony's
38:09 camp so he couldn't staff all of the boats and the boats that he could staff were too heavy to be
38:15 as nimble as the fleet of octavian
38:21 so anthony and cleopatra go off to alexandria octavian and agrippa declare
38:26 victory and begin striking coins that highlight the victory
38:31 usually showing a crocodile as the symbol of egypt so here is one issue
38:37 from uh the provincial mint of neem in southern france ancient nemosis showing uh
38:44 anthony anthony showing octavian and agrippa on one side and then the
38:50 crocodile symbolizing a conquered egypt and a laurel crown of victory to the
38:56 side on the other you just get the crocodile again symbolizing egypt and the legend
39:03 or the inscription egypt i gupto copte egypt has been brought under the dominion of the roman
39:10 people which is a phrase that we'll hear over and over again anthony and cleopatra managed to survive
39:17 in alexandria for nearly another year until octavian goes to alexandria
39:24 both of them commit suicide and by august of 30 bc
39:29 early august of 30 bc octavian is the master of the mediterranean
39:35 he decides to build a memorial at the site where the battle of actium had occurred to commemorate his tremendous
39:42 victory and founds a new city necopolis city of victory nikkei is the greek word
39:49 for victory also the source of the shoes that are often mispronounced nike one
39:55 wants to say nikkei which is the correct pronunciation so a new city that's founded here and a
40:01 victory monument a triumphal monument some of which still survives so you're seeing here the podium
40:08 of that monument and these rostra these ship beaks
40:14 made of bronze taken from the navy of marc anthony and cleopatra just as the
40:20 romans had taken them from the same nights in the early 4th century bc and adorned the speakers platform the rastra
40:28 in the roman forum you're seeing here a reconstruction of the front of the podium of that
40:35 triumphal monument as well as the inscription which we can reconstruct imperator caesar the emperor caesar that
40:42 would be octavian son of the divine julius victor in the war he waged on
40:48 behalf of the republic so against egypt on behalf of the republic and this is presented as a
40:54 foreign war what it was was a civil war anthony against octavian but it's presented as a
41:00 war of rome against egypt again it's all in the marketing after peace had been secured on land and
41:07 sea he consecrated this monument to mars and neptune god of war and god of the
41:13 sea uh and adorned it with naval spoils that would be these rostra these bronze ship
41:20 beaks to which i'll return in a minute we have an altar from that monument too
41:27 that has been excavated and still isn't completely published but we know enough about it for a
41:33 reconstruction to be presented you see the lower level consists of piles of
41:39 enemy weapons these are of course egyptian weapons not roman weapons this
41:44 was typical after a roman battle where you would gather the weapons of your enemy
41:49 accumulate them in a big pile on the battlefield and then have a celebration interestingly when i was in southern
41:56 afghanistan in 2012 i saw a big pile of russian tanks
42:04 when we were going through the countryside and i said to i was with a contingent of the afghan army obviously
42:11 everything has changed dramatically since 2012. but i said why do you have a pile of soviet tanks
42:16 and he said well the soviets occupied afghanistan between 1979 and 1989 and
42:21 after the soviets left we gathered all their tanks together into a kind of big pile and we had a party and i said you
42:27 know the romans did that 2000 years ago which they hadn't known but it was just uh it's often part it's i guess second
42:34 nature uh among a victor after a long uh battle or a long conquest
42:41 so we have the weapons of the enemy here and above it we have relief decoration of augustus's triple triumph in 29 bc
42:50 celebrating his victory at actium over cleopatra in egypt and another
42:56 victory in illyria um modern-day yugoslavia or that general area on the other side
43:03 of the on the east side of the adriatic so the triple triumph and in the triumph
43:09 this is one of the reliefs from the altar you can see octavian riding in a chariot with two of the children of
43:16 anthony and cleopatra these are alexander helios and cleopatra
43:22 fellaini we knew from the ancient historians that augustus
43:27 moved in the procession through the streets of rome with the children of anthony and cleopatra whom he treated
43:33 with respect but we never thought that we would find a relief that would actually show that
43:40 and included in the altar decoration are scenes from the origins of rome you see the wolf with romulus and remus here
43:47 and the same sort of theme of peace on land and sea
43:54 what's interesting about this triumphal procession is that you've got the children of anthony and cleopatra
44:00 paraded in the procession near a float that had an image of
44:06 cleopatra holding the asp that would bite her and send her off into the afterlife
44:14 so the children are riding in a procession next to a float that shows their mother committing suicide
44:23 now meanwhile what about the rostra i promise to return to those as i said the
44:28 rostra in the roman forum celebrates the romans first naval victory in the sam
44:34 knight wars in 338 bc at the battle of antiem this is anzio where of course
44:40 there was another major battle in world war ii and we know something about the nature
44:47 of these rostra because steadily we've been excavating rostra or rather i
44:52 should say underwater archaeologists have been excavating rostra associated
44:57 with boats that sank during naval battles one of them dating to the early hellenistic period the third or second
45:03 century bc was excavated off the coast of israel 40
45:09 years ago the so-called athlete ram weighing 465 kilos that's half a ton
45:16 these are enormously heavy components this is the kind of thing that octavian
45:22 would have inserted into the base of the platform of his enormous victory monument at uh actium
45:30 and more recently just within the last 10 15 years new
45:36 rostra have been excavated off the northwest coast of italy where the final
45:42 naval battle of the first punic war between rome and carthage had occurred
45:47 the battle of the the igetais islands in 41 bc where there were many boats belonging to
45:55 the romans and the carthaginians that sank and underwater archaeologists are
46:00 steadily excavating these rostra you see one on the seafloor here
46:05 in right after it had been lifted from the sea floor uh and after conservation
46:11 here so we're getting a sense of the variety and typology of ship rams as a
46:16 consequence of these new excavations by underwater archaeologists and the shipbeaks would
46:22 also be added to the temple of the divine julius caesar so this is
46:28 the podium of the temple here's the starburst again and the pediment and you can see the six bronze ship beaks taken
46:36 from cleopatra's navy so the temple of the divine julius caesar
46:41 achieved two things it celebrated octavian or augustus as the son of a god
46:47 and it also highlighted him as the victor at actium over the forces of
46:52 cleopatra and again the whole thing is being marketed not as a civil war but as
46:57 a war between rome and egypt this begins a process wherein rome
47:05 becomes egyptianized as many of you know after a major war it's not uncommon for
47:13 the decorative arts the material culture of the conquered region
47:18 to influence heavily the decorative arts and material culture of the conqueror
47:24 and so that was the case in rome as we find more and more egyptian elements
47:30 spreading through the cityscape especially obelisks so when augustus builds his tomb in the northern campus
47:38 marshes the mausoleum of augustus finished in 28 bc 42 years before
47:45 octavian or augustus would actually die why not be prepared just in case he puts
47:52 at the entrance of the obelisk entrance of the mausoleum to obelisks as well as
47:58 his autobiography his race guest eye a list of all of the deeds that he had
48:03 accomplished but these obelisks are standing as symbols of augustus's or octavian's
48:09 conquest of egypt and those obelisks of course still survive one of the obelisks
48:16 is in the piazza del esquilino next to santa maria majori the other on the quirinol in the
48:22 palazzo del curinale these obelisks were enormous i've given
48:29 you the measurements just over 14 meters high that's about as high as the ceiling
48:36 in the upper egyptian gallery of this museum so that will give you a sense of their colossal nature
48:44 another obelisk taken from egypt is set up again in the campus marshes and you know
48:51 it now from piazza di mache monte chittorio but in antiquity it was used as what we
48:58 call a gnomon a pointer of a giant clock that we usually refer to as the
49:04 oralogium of augustus or the sundial of augustus which is a solar meridian clock
49:11 of which our colleague lothar husselberger in the history of art department has written extensively this
49:18 is set up in 10 bc and the shadow that it cast on a large
49:24 network of lines would enable you to determine what time of day it was and
49:30 what time of year it was here is the obelisk as it stands in
49:36 piazza di monte chittorio now with the original inscription on the base which
49:42 says the same sort of thing as that triumphal monument at necopolis egypt
49:47 has been brought under the control under the jurisdiction of the roman people
49:52 and he dedicates it to the sun god which is appropriate since it was originally
49:57 created for the sun god of egypt in the late 1970s
50:05 the german archaeological institute actually dug trenches in the campus
50:10 marshes to see if they could find part of the pavement that was connected to this obelisk and they did miraculously
50:19 because those of you who have been to rome which is probably everyone in this audience you know how densely occupied
50:26 the campus marshes is it's one of the premier residential areas of the city so you have to dig through someone's
50:32 basement in order to get down to imperial roman levels but they did it
50:37 and you see the travertine pavement here with bronze inlay i've given you a
50:45 drawing of it in the next slide so here is what they found and
50:51 here is a reconstruction of the inscriptions which are in greek and here
50:57 we're at the end of summer at tasia paolontai the adhesion winds cease stop
51:05 blowing the adhesion winds are the winds that come in from africa
51:10 many of you know the album by joni mitchell called blue in 1971 where
51:16 there's a song called carrie that begins the winds are in from africa these are the adhesion winds and when they stop
51:23 that signals the end of summer and we move into the zodiac sign of virgo which
51:29 in greek would be parthenos which you see here this was a tremendous discovery and
51:35 again it's all connected to one of these monumental obelisks that augustus has brought back from egypt and we start
51:41 getting tombs in the shape of pyramids in egypt in egypt in rome during the
51:47 augustine period one of which still survives intact this is the pyramid of cestius you see it here on the
51:55 southwest side of rome i've drawn a red circle around it it still stands in near perfect
52:01 condition you can see cestius's name still in good order on the side of the pyramid
52:08 this is finished in the last two decades of the first century bc and it is one of two
52:16 pyramids as a tomb that was built in rome at that point the other one is in
52:21 vatican city you see it here on a plan next to the circus of caligula and nero
52:29 which underlies saint peter's basilica so you see here these dotted lines this
52:35 is saint peter's basilica built directly over the circus of caligula and nero
52:41 where in antiquity they believed that saint peter had been martyred and just to the side of that
52:47 you have the second pyramid which you see in some early modern engravings
52:54 we don't have it anymore the stone was taken down to build the steps of saint peter's basilica so it's gone but
53:01 nevertheless th this is another indication of the egyptianizing of rome
53:07 and meanwhile in egypt augustus is treated just as a pharaoh would have been treated at least in
53:13 terms of the decorative arts so if we were to look at the augustine period
53:18 temple of dendor and you can see dender here right in the center of egypt next to lake nasser
53:25 and you see it here where it now sits in the metropolitan museum of art in new york this is completed in 10 bc after
53:32 augustus has defeated marc anthony and cleopatra and you see
53:37 among the release of the temple you should see it there it is
53:43 augustus himself who is presenting offerings to the egyptian gods thoth and to venice so
53:50 augustus is presented looking like a pharaoh pharonic costume and phoronic
53:55 style they simply pick up the traditional traits iconographic traits
54:01 of kingship in egypt and apply them to augustus which is who now controls egypt
54:07 as his own personal province meanwhile how does all this work or what
54:14 memory do we have of all of this in the early modern and modern periods
54:20 how is the battle of actium relevant and all of the elements that i've been talking about tonight i mentioned that
54:26 the battle of actium is the last great naval battle in antiquity when do we get
54:31 our next great naval battle 1571 the battle of lepanto with pope
54:38 pius v leading a group of european allies against the ottomans and it's taking
54:45 place just a stone's throw from where the battle of actium took place
54:51 sixteen hundred years earlier so again plus challenge the more things change the more they stay the same
55:00 the egyptianizing of a region that has waged war in egypt is also a common
55:07 feature we see it with the campaigns of napoleon in egypt in the late 18th early
55:13 19th century when after his campaigns in egypt he goes back to paris and paris
55:19 experiences the same kind of egyptianizing that rome experienced in the late 1st
55:25 century bc where you find obelisks you find clocks with sphinxes and fountains with sphinx
55:32 decoration egyptianizing paris just like egyptianizing rome
55:39 and what about the modern period do we still have rostral monuments we do
55:45 all you need to do is go to new york city to columbus circle which is dominated by a rostral column in the
55:53 center of the circle you see the rostra here the ship beaks which are the same
55:58 kind of thing as those used by octavian or augustus in his necopolis victory
56:03 monument this is set up in 1892 celebrating the 400th year anniversary
56:09 of columbus's arrival in the new world
56:15 what about the tearing up of the steps of a building used by the senate
56:20 by a group of partisans associated with a populist politician
56:26 when the january sixth attack on the capitol building in washington happened
56:32 i doubt that many people thought this is just like what happened in 58 bc with
56:37 the partisans of clodius but those of us who were archaeologists saw it as
56:42 exactly the same thing
56:48 i mentioned that you should keep in your minds the two obelisks that stood at the
56:53 entrance to the sanctuary of the divine julius caesar in alexandria egypt in the
57:00 late 1st century bc where are those obelisks now one is in london on the victoria
57:08 embankment on the banks of the thames the other one is in central park both go
57:13 by the name of cleopatra's needle both of them acquired from egypt in the late
57:19 19th century and so the next time that you find yourself in central park
57:26 and you see cleopatra's needle rising in front of you take a minute
57:32 and think about caesar and marc anthony and octavian and
57:38 cleopatra because the memories of all of them are incorporated into this monument
57:44 and just by looking at it you can bring those memories back to life thank you for listening to me tonight
57:50 thank you for your support of the penn museum thank you

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