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Octavian was approaching a very dangerous moment. He was trying to precipitate a war without receiving the blame for it. For the present, he set himself limited objectives. First of all, he had to make his public position crystal clear, announce the inevitability of a showdown, and force the political world to choose which triumvir to back in the coming struggle. At the same time, he had to mobilize maximum support throughout Italy, which Antony might very well invade.

Octavian’s final letter in the war of words reached Antony in October 33, when he was at the Armenian border with Media, preparing to renew his Parthian war. When he read what his brother-in-law had to say, Antony realized that once again Parthia would have to wait. Having rejected every charge leveled against him, Octavian concluded, with biting derision: “Your soldiers have no claim upon any lands in Italy. Their rewards lie in Media and Parthia which they have added to the Roman empire by their gallant campaigns under their imperator.”

Accepting that relations with Octavian had irretrievably broken down and that consequently war was inevitable, Antony set off with a small advance force on the long journey back to the Aegean, ordering one of his generals, Publius Canidius Crassus, a loyal and able supporter who had campaigned successfully in Armenia, to follow with an army of sixteen legions. He summoned Cleopatra, who joined him en route, bringing with her an ample war chest of twenty thousand talents (about 480 million sesterces), and the pair made the port of Ephesus (near the modern town of Selçuk in southern Turkey) their headquarters.

At the end of December, the Triumvirate came to an end. Octavian’s purpose now was to maintain his new public image as a strict observer of the constitution. He had no governmental status of any kind and in theory was taking a very dangerous risk by politically disarming himself this way. However, after more than ten years at the head of affairs he had built up a formidable auctoritas, the power that came from his record and his proven ability. Furthermore, by now he was the master of a multitudinous clientela; many thousands of people had obligations to him. Perhaps most important of all, the legions in the west remained his to command. Tactfully, he withdrew from Rome to await events.

In January 32, two new consuls took office. In the days when the triumviral machine was still more or less in working order, consuls had been named for years ahead, drawn on a roughly equal basis from supporters of the two triumvirs. It so happened that those for the new year were partisans of Antony.

The senior consul was Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (the cognomen means “Bronze Beard”), the aristocrat who had proved to be a good admiral for Brutus and Cassius. His colleague was the able and determined Gaius Sosius, a new man. As was typical of the time, he was a provincial, perhaps from Picenum in northern Italy.

The consuls had an important commission from Antony to execute. Late in the previous autumn, the triumvir had sent them a letter which they were to read out to the Senate once they had taken office. His aim was to set out his case fully, authoritatively, and persuasively; he probably restated his eastern settlement, his various acta, and in particular his welcome Armenian victory.

However, the consuls made a curious decision, as Dio writes: “Domitius and Sosius…being extremely devoted to [Antony], refused to publish [the dispatch] to all the people, even though Caesar urged it on them.” This can only mean that in the consuls’ view its impact on public, or at least senatorial, opinion would be the opposite of that intended by its author. The problem must have lain with a proud, or at least a complacent, description of the Donations of Alexandria. Antony would have been unaware that Octavian’s anti-Cleopatra propaganda had been all too effective and that his references to the Donations would merely add fuel to the flames.

On February 1, Sosius went on the attack. He strongly