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Actium: A Note

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

W. W. Tarn
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Extract

I am writing this note on Mr. G. W. Richardson's Actium (JRS xxvii, 1937, 153) for the sake of one general principle, drawing attention briefly to the main points.

First, Horace. Mr. Richardson says sinistrorsum will not fit my interpretation because it is ‘commonly assumed’ that Antony's centre was opposite the mouth of the Gulf. Horace wrote within a few days of the battle, and was in a position to know; suppose we keep to what he says, and forget all about ‘common assumptions.’ If he says sinistrorsum, he means that Antony's whole fleet was north of the Gulf. Antony came out in line ahead—he could not do otherwise through the narrow exit; he could turn either north or south, and Horace shows he turned north, i.e. to his right. When all his ships were out—he could not do it earlier—he changed to line abreast; the last ship out, now the last on his left, might still have been opposite the mouth of the Gulf, but the three squadrons of the centre and left, taken as a whole, were northward of it, and if they wanted to get back into the Gulf they would go sinistrorsum. It is simple enough, provided we follow the primary evidence. Mr. Richardson further seeks to get rid of Horace's reference to the desertion of Antony's fleet, or of part of it, by saying that it means ships fleeing from (or after) the battle. But puppes navium citae, as a long line of commentators have pointed out, can only mean backing water, i.e. going stern first; and I am sure no galley ever fled from a lost battle stern first.

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Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , 1938, pp. 165 - 168
Copyright
Copyright © W. W. Tarn 1938. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Kromayer, (‘Actium: ein Epilog,’ Hermes lxviii, 1933, 378 ff.Google Scholar) tried to get rid of Horace (1) by saying, in contradiction of his previously correct view, that the desertion of the Galatae was an unimportant episode, and (2) by relying on the late Professor Housman's old article of 1882. There is no harm, I think, in saying now that I knew, when I wrote my article, that Housman had changed his view (Kromayer could not know this); but I undertook not to mention it, as he thought he might be writing himself. That, unfortunately, is now impossible. Kromayer would not have said that I neglected the Vorgeschichte of the battle (which Mr. Richardson quotes with approval) had he lived to see the use I made of his own masterly exposition of it in my full account in CAH x.

2 Orosius vi, 19, 9. I am not going again through Kromayer on the 600 ships taken by Augustus. He omitted a number of factors.

3 It is not quite as complicated as he thinks, for Plutarch's 20,000 legionaries shipped by Antony (Antonius 64, 1) is not a tradition, but merely Plutarch taking a shot at a likely round figure for those 170 ships. Tradition would have given the force in legions, as it did for Octavian.

4 Dio repeated this, though he made the fleets about equal in numbers. Yet some people take Dio on Actium seriously.

5 On this ship see now Tarn, Mariner's Mirror (1933), 54, 69.

6 Orosius vi, 19, 5, said nearly a third. Even if true, Antony had now only some 400 ships of the line to man (including Cleopatra's) out of the original 480. Orosius' figure is probably not a tradition at all, but part of the ‘170 ships’ legend.

7 Propertius ii, 1, 34 (Augustus' triumph): Actiaque in Sacra currere rostra via.