ABSTRACT
Civil strife had made the Republic increasingly ungovernable for at least a century before the battle of Actium; the victory of Octavian and Agrippa, however, over Antonius and Cleopatra effectively brought it to an end. Presented by Octavian’s propaganda as a titanic struggle between the forces of civilisation and barbarism, the issue which was in reality settled by the battle was that of primacy within Caesar’s faction, which had been a matter of dispute since the Dictator’s death thirteen years before. As Tacitus succinctly put it, the faction now had no leader but Caesar.
