RE: Battle of Actium and the Death of Cleopatra, 31 BC
Poetry: esp. Propertius 3.11 and 4.6 and Vergil, Aeneid VIII.675ff., and Horace passim
For Augustan Literature today we were assigned two of Propertius' elegies which celebrate Octavian's victory over Cleopatra and Antony at Actium in 31. This victory marked an end to the civil wars and the Hellenistic Age, and the beginning of the Roman Empire to come. And poets get really excited about it and write about the wicked queen Cleopatra in thinly-concealed male fear of a powerful woman. Albeit there were some other issues at play...but that Cleopatra, a female monarch of the East, was the target and not Antony says something.
Anyway, whenever I read these patriotic/chauvinistic victory poems about Actium, I imagine the Romans as the Munchkins from the old Wizard of Oz movie, only in Roman dress celebrating a triumph while singing, "Ding, dong, the witch is dead," etc.
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