Between Brother and Husband: Triumviral Mediator

Abstract In 37, Octavia helped renegotiate the Triumviral alliance at Tarentum; ships and troops were transferred between Octavian and Antony. Later historiographic writings praise Octavia’s work by evoking the legendary Sabine Women when they told of Tarentum, and vice versa. In the winter of 36/35, Octavia again transferred supplies between her brother and husband, now from Athens. Since Antony did not meet her in person, ancient and modern sources interpret this as a critical rupture. The chapter presents this instead as an effort to bolster peace, similar to Octavia’s intervention at Tarentum. Our literary sources are shown to be influenced by later wartime propaganda that retrojected hostility between the Triumvirs far back into the 30s BCE. The chapter also analyzes evidence that Antony did not intend his growing relationship with Cleopatra to be seen as incompatible with his marriage to Octavia. The impact of the accounts of Plutarch and Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra on scholarship is explored.