Augustus becomes first Emperor of Roman Empire | World History | Khan Academy

We finished the last video in the year 40 BCE, where the year began with the Parthian invasion of Syria and the Eastern provinces of the Roman Republic.

And really, is it an Empire, the Roman Republic, or the Roman Empire? But Mark Anthony, who was in control of the east of the Empire, he wasn't able to deal with it immediately because he goes to Brundisium in order to take his wife's side on a civil war between her and Octavian. Now, his wife dies, and he makes good with Octavian. In fact, so good with Octavian, he marries Octavian's sister, Octavia. They decide, "All right, let's continue to be friends here," and they divide the Roman Empire, the Roman Republic, whatever you want to call it, between them.

Mark Anthony keeps control of the East; you now have Octavian with control over the West, and they gave Lepidus, who's always a bit of the third wheel here, some of the Southern provinces right over there. Now, it seems like all is good, but as we've already talked about, the tension between Anthony and Octavian is there. It was there from the beginning, and in this video, we're going to see that it gets a lot, a lot worse.

So, Mark Anthony goes back to the East, where he starts planning his invasion of Parthia. Not only does he want to take back the territory that they took in 40 BCE, but he actually wants to avenge them for Crassus's death in 53 BCE. Julius Caesar had been planning an invasion of Persia, and you have to remember that after Alexander the Great, all of these Western rulers, especially the Romans, all had their sights on Persia. They said, "Hey, maybe I can be just like Alexander the Great and take over the Persians."

So, Mark Anthony is planning his invasion of Persia, but he doesn't get the troops that he wants from Octavian, and so that starts to build the tensions even further. But he goes to his lover Cleopatra, who is the richest woman in the world, the Pharaoh of Egypt, and says, "Hey, can you give me some Egyptian troops?" And so he plans an invasion of Parthia with a combined Roman and Egyptian troops.

Now, unfortunately, that is a failed invasion. As they try to make their way in, they get pretty far, but they weren't able to protect their supply lines carefully. And so the Parthians are able to attack them, attack their supply lines, and while they do, the king of Armenia just kind of doesn't really do anything about it. Mark Anthony is forced to retreat, and so you can imagine he's not too happy about this. The Parthians in 40 BCE were able to take all of this territory.

In 36 BCE, we find ourselves right over here. We have a failed, I guess you could say, revenge invasion of the Parthians. He's betrayed by the Armenian king. Now, the other thing that's happening is that Lepidus is now out of the triumvirate. He tries to do a little bit of a land grab after he and Octavian go after another, I guess you could say, governor in Sicily.

When they're successful, when Lepidus tries to take control of Sicily, Octavian says, "No, no, no, no! Not only can you not do that, but you're now out of the triumvirate." So, 36 BCE is a situation where Octavian continues to try to consolidate his power in the West. Lepidus is now out, and Mark Anthony faces another, I guess you say, embarrassment against the Parthians.

So then we get to 33 BCE. So, let's see, this is 33 BCE right over here on this map, and finally, he's able to muster up enough of a force to take not revenge on the Parthians but to take some of the territory. But in particular, to take revenge on the Armenian king. So, Mark Anthony, you know, it's his first win after a while tries to make a lot of this.

When he goes back to Alexandria, where of course his lover Cleopatra reigns, he has this big celebration to say, "Hey, look, I went and was able to take out the king of Armenia." Now, this celebration rubs the Romans the wrong way on a whole bunch of dimensions. One, they never really liked Cleopatra; they viewed her as a foreign queen. They didn't like her when she was Julius Caesar's lover; they definitely don't like her when she's Mark Anthony's lover.

And they're kind of peeved that he decides to go to Alexandria and do this ceremonial victory party that typically only happened in Rome. It looks like this guy doesn't really even view himself as Roman anymore; he likes to go back to Alexandria. The real salt that he rubbed especially in Octavian's wounds was a speech he gave which will later be known as the Donation of Alexandria.

So what he starts doing is putting his children, especially the children that he has with Cleopatra, as the rulers of a lot of the Eastern provinces. But the worst thing that he does is in that speech, in the Donation of Alexandria, this is in 33 BCE right over here, he declares that Cleopatra's son, that was apparently the son of Julius Caesar, Caesarion, that he is the rightful heir to Julius Caesar.

Now, Octavian does not like this. He says, "Hey, I'm the adopted son; I'm the rightful heir! I don't like the Caesarion guy." So for the next few years, in 33 and 32 BCE, tensions start to get a lot, lot, lot worse between Octavian and Mark Anthony. They are publicly accusing each other of not even being legitimate people with legitimate authority. They are really starting to question each other; they're really starting to go at each other.

And it all culminates in 31 BCE. It all culminates in 31 BCE. So this is where we are right over here with the naval battle at Actium. For the most part, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra are both there, and they're on their heels; they're surrounded by the forces of Octavian. The best that they can hope for is just an escape, and Anthony and Cleopatra are able to escape.

It's very clear from that battle that they really only cared about saving their own hides and their own wealth, and they left most of their Navy—they returned with only 60 boats to Alexandria—but they leave most of their Navy to kind of have to deal with the forces of Octavian. So they were already on the heels. They have this escape in 31 BCE. Many historians will call the Battle of Actium, and this is a depiction of the naval battle at Actium right over here.

After this, there was no chance really for Cleopatra and Mark Anthony in any way to rival Octavian. Octavian was now the real sole power, and what is evolving from a Roman Republic to a Roman Empire. But Anthony and Cleopatra, maybe they didn't realize it as much; they go back to Alexandria and continue to plot, seeing how they can get back at Octavian.

So Octavian doesn't want much of this, so he decides to go attack them in Alexandria in 30 BCE. Anthony tries to make a last stand against Octavian, but his military, his soldiers really aren't in the mood to fight. So he goes back to the palace; he looks for Cleopatra. Cleopatra gets one of her servants to tell Mark Anthony because he has no mood to see him.

Who knows? He's raving mad; he might want to kill her. Who knows what he might want to do? Cleopatra had her servant tell Mark Anthony that Cleopatra was dead. And so Mark Anthony, he's already down; his soldiers have deserted him. There's no way for him to take on Octavian; he's essentially lost. And now Cleopatra, his lover, is apparently dead. He stabs himself repeatedly in the stomach.

Now, Cleopatra finds out about this, and then she has Mark Anthony brought to her. He doesn't die immediately; stabbing yourself in the stomach is a way of having a very slow and painful death. And while he dies essentially in her arms, Cleopatra is taken then by the forces of Octavian. But then she too decides that she wants to commit suicide, or at least that's what most accounts say.

The most common account is that she gets a snake smuggled into her rooms—a poisonous snake that she taunts and gets to bite her, which allows her to die. So both Cleopatra and Mark Anthony die in 30 BCE, and Octavian now, the really the main power, he kills Caesarion, who was Cleopatra's son with Julius Caesar, as the only possible rival.

So here we are in 30 BCE; Octavian is victorious. Then he goes back to Rome and continues to consolidate his power until we get to 27 BCE, which is often marked as the beginning of the Roman Empire, when Octavian was given the name Augustus, which means illustrious one. From then on, he will continue to reign with more and more and more power that he continues to consolidate for many, many, many, many more decades.