5/24/2023 0 Comments Gaius julius caesar fateThe history of the end of the Roman Republic-the sweeping battles on land and sea, the poignant historical ironies and above all the iconic men who shaped the course of history-is well known. Parmensis had taken refuge in Athens, where he wrote poems and plays, enjoyed literary acclaim among the Athenians and kept one ear pricked at all times to the steps of an approaching assassin. Yet at least one thorn remained: a seaman named Claudius Parmensis, the last living participant in the plot against Julius Caesar. Thus, the assassins who sought to thwart one dictator inadvertently paved the way for another. No one left, it seemed, could challenge Octavian's absolute power. In September of 31, Octavian's forces routed those of Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium. Once they had eliminated their shared enemies, of course, Antony and Octavian turned on each other. In 35, allies of Octavian and Antony captured and executed Sextus Pompey, heir to Pompey Magnus-Julius Caesar's political brother-turned-arch-nemesis-whose naval forces had been harrying them. In October of 42, the forces of Octavian and Mark Antony, Caesar's former deputy, triumphed over those of Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius, the two men who had led the plot, at Philippi. Octavian, the young man named by the assassinated Julius Caesar as son and heir in his will, had long been consolidating power while hunting the conspirators who stabbed Caesar to death on the floor of the Senate 14 years earlier.Īlready, a half-dozen of the assassins had fallen. By 30 B.C., the aspiring Roman dictator Octavian had dispatched all the meaningful enemies who stood between him and absolute rule over the fraying Roman republic.
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