Roman military and political leader and triumvir, eldest son of Antonius Creticus and grandson of Marcus Antonius, the Roman orator. Having served under Gabinius in Syria (57), he joined Caesar, to whom he was related on his mother’s side, in Gaul (54) and became one of his most trusted officers and devoted supporters. On his election to the quaestorship of 51 B.C., served in this office also under Caesar. Returning to Rome in 50 B.C., he was elected tribune.
As a tribune he used his wide powers of veto to defeat moves by Pompey and the Senate to relieve Julius Caesar of command of the army. Antony’s opposition to the Senate made it imperative that he flee Rome. He joined Caesar in January 49 B.C., when the general made his famous crossing of the Rubicon to invade Italy.
Antony defended Caesar against the senate’s attempt to curb his authority, was expelled from the senate for this act of defiance, and rejoined Caesar in northern Italy. In the ensuing war between Caesar and Pompey, Antony commanded armies in Italy and Greece. In the Battle of Pharsala he helped to defeat Pompey and establish the dominance of Caesar. He and Caesar were consuls together in 44 B.C.
When Julius Caesar was murdered in the Senate on the Ides (15th) of March 44 B.C., Mark Antony gave a funeral oration of such emotion that the chief conspirators, Cassius and Marcus Brutus, had to flee the city.
Assured of the support of Caesar’s followers, Antony proceeded to secure his own position, but met an enemy in Cicero, who spoke out against him, and a rival in Octavian (the future Emperor Augustus).
The senate, however, soon grew suspicious of Antony. It regarded him as another dictator, and regretted that he had not been killed along with Caesar. The orator Cicero led the opposition to Antony and persuaded Caesar’s heir, Octavian, later called Augustus, to join in a war against Antony in Cisalpine Gaul.
Antony was defeated at the Battle of Mutina in 43 B.C., but shortly thereafter he and Octavian joined forces. With Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, they formed the Second Triumvirate, which ruled Rome for ten years. Gaul going to Antonius, Spain to Lepidus and Africa, Sardinia, and Sicily to Octavian. Ruthless suppression of conspirators followed, even Cicero not escaping, and in 42 B.C. the republican and senatorial opposition was routed.
Before dividing the territories of the Republic among them, the triumvirs put their enemies to death. Among their victims was Cicero. They then prepared for war against Brutus and Cassius, who had raised an army in the eastern provinces. In 42 B.C. the opposing armies met near Philippi in northern Greece. Defeated in two battles, Brutus and Cassius took their own lives, and the triumvirate rule of Rome was assured. After the battles, Antony remained in the East. He met Cleopatra and spent the winter of 41 and 40 B.C. with her in Egypt.
In 40 B.C., his alliance with Octavian was renewed by the Treaty of Brundisium, which gave the eastern provinces of the empire to Antony, the western provinces to Octavian and the African provinces to Lepidus. Antony was in Greece until 37, when another breach with Octavian was healed by the Treaty of Tarentum, which lengthened the authority of the triumvirate for a further 5 years.
In the following year, however, events began to destroy what little harmony remained within the renewed triumvirate. Antony’s armies lost ground to the Parthians and most Romans were alarmed at his open liaison with Cleopatra – an alarm freely exploited by Octavian, whose own popularity was rising in the wake of his defeat of the pirates of Sextus Pompey. When Octavian forced Lepidus out of power, mutual suspicion between Antony and Octavian flared into open hostility.
Mark Antony supported his brother Lucius Antonius who had declared war on Octavian; but he was again reconciled with the latter and married his sister Octavia. Antony returned to the east in 39, visiting Italy only once more, in 37, when the triumvirate was renewed.
After further difficulties between Antony and Octavian, Octavia was dismissed and sent back to Italy, and Antony arranged for Cleopatra to join him in Syria. This step was in part politically motivated, as the kingdom of Egypt was a valuable asset.
After a triumphant campaign in Armenia, he alienated many of his supporters by parading through the streets of Alexandria, as in a Roman Triumph He then had Cleopatra proclaimed queen of an expanded Egyptian Empire, including some territories belonging to Rome, and her son Caesarion, whom he claimed to be the son of Caesar, proclaimed king.
Antony began to live openly with Cleopatra. In 36 B.C. he married her, and three years later he proclaimed her children the heirs to Rome’s eastern provinces. Octavian used Antony’s imprudent conduct to arouse mistrust of him in Rome, and in 32 B.C. the senate deprived Antony of power and declared war on Egypt.
The turning point of the war was when Antony’s troops were defeated by Octavius’s at the great naval battle of Actium in 31 B.C. Antony and Cleopatra’s navy was annihilated at Actium in 31 B.C. and Octavian marched into Alexandria in the following year.
He prepared to defend himself at Alexandria, but his men deserted in large numbers as Octavian approached the city. Octavian rejected his offer to fight him in hand-to-hand combat. Mark Antony killed himself, believing that Cleopatra had already committed suicide, although, in fact, she died after him.
Marcus Antonius, elder son of Mark Antony, was executed by order of Octavian after his father’s suicide in 30 B.C.
The death of Antony gave undisputed control of the Roman world to Octavian, who, as Augustus, soon became the first Emperor of Rome.
