The Chronicle of the Tumultuous Decade (40–30 BC)
Year 40 BC – The Ashes of Civil War
In the wake of Philippi, Rome exhaled not in relief but in dread.
Three masters ruled the world: Octavianus in the West, Marcus Antonius in the East, and Lepidus in the dust of Africa.
Yet Italy groaned under the weight of confiscated lands, and the dispossessed whispered Antonius' name with desperate hope.
Fulvia, the fierce and cunning ex-wife of Marcus Antonius, and Lucius Antonius, his brother, kindled those whispers into rebellion.
Thus began the Perusine War, a Roman war against Romans, fought in winter’s bleak embrace.
Perusia starved. Its walls cracked. And when the city fell into Octavianus’s hands, an altar rose —
An altar to the divine Julius — and upon it, nobles paid the price of defiance in blood.
Fulvia fled eastward, and Antonius, hearing of these flames, prepared to mend a world collapsing beneath his family’s ambition.
Year 39 BC – Shadows over the Sea
Famine clawed at Rome as Sextus Pompey choked the grain routes.
The Treaty of Misenum brought fragile relief, but Pompey’s eyes still glimmered with vengeance.
In Greece, Fulvia drew her last breath, and with her passing, one of the sharpest blades in Antonius' household was sheathed forever.
Peace returned — not from the Triumvirs, but from Octavia, the calm between tempests, the sister of Octavianus and wife of Antonius.
Year 38 BC – A New Matriarch in Rome
On the day Julia was born, Scribonia was dismissed, and Octavianus took another wife:
Livia Drusilla, serene, sharp, and pregnant with another man’s child.
Rome murmured. But Octavianus did not listen.
He had found not merely a wife, but a partner in destiny.
Meanwhile, Sextus Pompey sharpened his triremes, and Agrippa — young, brilliant, and relentless — began reforging Rome’s fleet.
Year 37 BC – The Last Embrace of the Triumvirs
Antonius returned to Italy, and swords nearly leapt from their scabbards as he and Octavianus stood face to face.
Only Octavia, noble and wronged, stood between them and disaster.
By her quiet hand, the Pact of Tarentum was signed, extending the Triumvirate’s life.
Antonius returned east with ships, and Octavianus with men.
Rome breathed once more, though it felt like breathing in the eye of a storm.
In the same year, Octavianus sailed to Sicily, determined to crush Sextus Pompey, but the island proved a fortress of shifting shadows. Sextus, master of the sea, refused open battle. His fleet appeared only in fog and retreated before Octavianus could engage. Storms broke Octavianus’s ships, scattering his forces and leaving him frustrated and humiliated on the Sicilian coast. Realising he could not defeat Sextus with his current fleet, Octavianus called for Agrippa, whose arrival would soon turn the tide of the war.
Year 36 BC – The Fall of Rivals
The sea roared. The fleets clashed.
Agrippa, with new harbours and new tactics, shattered Sextus Pompey at Naulochus, ending the Pompeian line of resistance. Lepidus, swollen with pride, attempted to seize Sicily, but his own soldiers deserted him.
He was stripped of power, left only with the priesthood — a relic of authority.
Meanwhile, Mark Antony launched an ambitious invasion of Parthia with a massive force of around 100,000 men, aiming to avenge Crassus's catastrophic defeat at Carrhae in 53 BCE and enhance his prestige. The campaign was poorly planned and executed. Antony advanced through Armenia into Media Atropatene, but his siege train—carrying crucial artillery and supplies—was destroyed by Parthian forces while separated from the main army.
Without proper siege equipment, Antony couldn't take fortified cities and was forced into a disastrous retreat as winter approached. The Parthians, employing their traditional tactics of mobile horse archers, harassed the Roman column relentlessly. Antony lost roughly a quarter of his army—some 20,000-30,000 men—to combat, disease, starvation, and exposure during the retreat. He returned to Syria humiliated, his military reputation badly damaged, and his resources depleted.
Year 35 BC – Rumours from the East
Octavianus campaigned in Illyricum, hardening his legions and his legend.
Antonius, far from Rome, found comfort and ambition in Cleopatra, who ruled Egypt like a goddess cloaked in mortal form.
Whispers returned across the sea:
Antonius no longer belonged to Rome.
Year 34 BC – The Queens’ Triumph
In Alexandria, Antonius staged a triumph that had never touched Roman soil.
Armenia bowed.
Cleopatra shone beside him as Queen of Kings.
Their children were crowned with realms that belonged to Rome alone.
In the Forum, men cursed and spat.
The Senate trembled.
A foreign queen now seemed to command a Roman consul.
Year 33 BC – The Triumvirate Dies
The legal bond of the Three ended. Their unity, long dead, was now buried by law.
Octavianus controlled Rome. Antonius controlled the East.
Each sharpened the moral blade with which he would strike the other.
The nobles watched, choosing sides with trembling hands.
Year 32 BC – The Breaking of Bonds
Antonius divorced Octavia, the one woman who had saved the Republic from another war.
Rome cried out in outrage; the people adored Octavia's loyalty and dignity.
Octavianus moved with calculated cruelty: he revealed Antonius' alleged will —
that he wished to be buried in Alexandria beside Cleopatra,
that Caesarion should rule as Caesar’s true heir.
Whether true or forged mattered little.
Rome believed.
The Senate, inflamed, declared war —
not on Antonius, but on Cleopatra, the foreign queen who had ensnared him.
Year 31 BC – The Sea Decides
At Actium, the gods watched as fleets clashed beneath a burning sky.
Agrippa encircled Antonius.
Smoke choked the horizon.
And then — like spirits abandoning a doomed man —
Antonius and Cleopatra fled through a gap in the fighting lines.
Their fleet collapsed. Their future died in the Ionian waters.
Year 30 BC – The End of an Age
Octavianus marched into Egypt.
Antonius, believing Cleopatra dead, fell on his sword.
Cleopatra, caged but unbroken, chose death over humiliation, ending her life with the bite of an asp or a poison unknown.
Caesarion fled, then fell into Octavianus’s quiet, decisive grip.
Egypt became Octavianus's private realm — the final jewel that crowned his dominance.
The Roman world, bleeding from decades of war, looked to one man for order:
Octavianus, soon to be called Augustus, was the first Emperor in all but name.
And so the Republic died not in a single night,
but over ten years of fire, betrayal, and ambition —
a decade when Rome learned that peace would come
Only when one man ruled all.