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Early Access to Next Video (Patreon)

Published:
2021-04-11 15:20:05
Imported:
2026-06

Videos

Content

Antony's Invasion of Parthia (42 to 33 B.C.E.)

I HOPE YOU LIKE MAPS.

Another installment in the continuing series: "Mediocre Roman Leaders Who Are Incredibly Lucky To be Surrounded By Other Mediocre Leaders."

This video features me taking Antony's political situation quite seriously, and coming out the other side shockingly sympathetic to his point of view.  Except in one case, where he 100% did a murder and completely got away with it... and another case, where he's a bad brain dumb dumb stupid idiot....

Honestly now that I think about it Antony kinda gets off easy in this one.

Files

Antony's Invasion of Parthia (42 to 33 B.C.E.)

Patreon | http://historiacivilis.com/patreon Donate | http://historiacivilis.com/donate Merch | http://historiacivilis.com/merch Mailing List | http://historiacivilis.com/mailinglist Website | http://historiacivilis.com Twitter | http://historiacivilis.com/twitter Sources: Suetonius, "The Life of Augustus" | https://amzn.to/3g0AKby Appian, "The Civil Wars: Book 3" | https://amzn.to/2PKEBPr Appian, "The Civil Wars: Book 4" | https://amzn.to/2PKEBPr Plutarch, "The Life of Antony" | https://amzn.to/3s9lE6b

Comments

Kasey Farnum

How come these are on vimeo now instead of just unlisted on YouTube?

ComradeLuigi

me when the negotiations are aggressive

Jack Downes

People were sharing the links.

Jack Downes

A week after Easter, Historia Rex has risen!!

Historia Civilis

People started posting the YouTube link on public forums, which is a big no-no. The Vimeo video is linked directly to your Patreon account, which stops people from doing that.

Kasey Farnum

Aw that sucks can't cast anymore but atleast the videos are still the best around

Ak

Loved the analysis of Antony’s plans on the Roman East. Really did make me see it in a new light. Also the new Senate seating layout is great!

Sean Leavey

"I HOPE YOU LIKE MAPS" I. fucking. love. maps. That's my Sunday made!

Historia Civilis

(I know that some people on here rely on subtitles to view the videos. They will be up within 24 hours, I haven't forgotten!)

Historia Civilis

I was going through and counting and I think I use 36 unique maps in this video, which *has* to be a personal record. When you're watching it you barely notice since most of them are just adding and subtracting one piece of territory, but keeping track of which map goes where on my end was A WHOLE THING.

razgriz

"Anthony took to drinking", again?

Simon Wolfe

Another top quality video

Garrett Leddy

“I’m not saying there was any foul play but Antony definitely murdered his wife.” Thats unadulterated gold

Bryton J Swan

Another fantastic video! I'm curious about the triumph held in Alexandria. If the Roman Pomerium was central to the triumph how was Antony able to justify the event as a real triumph? Or did he even try? Would the people of Alexandria have understood that what they were watching was a triumph?

Fitz

I love how you go so deeply into Antony's motivations, not just in this video but in others, as well. Sure, he made a lot of reckless / egoistic / downright stupid decisions, but it's nice to see him as a more well-rounded character, rather than the degenerate, alcoholic mediocrity he's often portrayed as.

David Goebel

I find it funny in the part of the video when he’s discussing Antony’s trouble dealing with local warlords and aristocrats is just one giant flex to put as many different colored squares on screen as possible 😂

James Bush

Another great video. The highlight of 2021 so far.

Historia Civilis

I had a whole thing talking about this, but I cut it from the final video! I knew that the Donations of Alexandria bit at the end would be a little confusing, and I didn't want to muddy the waters with a 5 minute digression about this Triumph... So, by definition, a Triumph *had* to take place in Rome. The special thing about a Triumph was the permission to cross the Roman Pomerium, which had special legal and religious significance. Plenty of other cities had Pomeriums, but they had no special significance to Romans, and Roman generals did not need permission to cross them. After invading Armenia, Antony held a celebration in Alexandria that had all of the FORMS of a Roman Triumph, but he didn't actually call it that. But every Roman understood exactly what he was doing. Octavian seized on this, and weaponized it against him. It was basically a sacrilegious act to say that Alexandria's Pomerium had any religious or legal significance to Romans. The implication that a Roman general couldn't enter a foreign city for religious reasons was like... a wacky idea. It was *especially* sacrilegious since Egypt was a foreign country that worshipped foreign gods. Holding a Triumph in Egypt kinda recognized the Egyptian gods as equal in status to the Roman gods, which had troubling religious implications. Like I said, I literally had a 5 minute section on this which came immediately before the Donations of Alexandria bit. But in the end I decided that the IMPORTANT thing for the audience to understand was the Donations of Alexandria, and how Antony elevated Caesarian, and how this was a direct threat to Octavian. The Triumph is kind of secondary to all of that, since Octavian was just throwing whatever he could at Antony for propaganda purposes. So in the end I kinda yadda-yadda'd it and was like "Antony invaded Armenia and held a Triumph, BUT THE IMPORTANT THING IS THE DONATIONS OF ALEXANDRIA."

Historia Civilis

I kept on reading things where it was like "Fulvia met up with Antony and then dropped dead for literally no reason" and it was driving me nuts. EXCUSE ME DETECTIVE I THINK I'VE CRACKED THE CASE.

Historia Civilis

Also my way of saying "listen, the map of the Roman East is a lie, the whole thing was held together by shoestring and glue."

LiterallyJudas

I really hate both primary factions but im so invested in the death of a republic.

Oriskó Norbert

Yeah, I bought an HDMI cable just to be able to continue to watch these on my big screen. I used to cast it too :D It wouldn't work if I wanted to do anything else on my laptop at the mean time, but fortunately Historia Civilis videos are always a prime program. They always deserve my full attention :-)

Oriskó Norbert

I never particularly liked Antony, but with each video, my HATE towards Octavian grows larger and larger. Now this guy deliberately starts a new Civil War when his partner does his best (which is honestly not much) to strengthen the East. Seriously? :D

LiterallyJudas

Romans just can't catch a break from Iranians. A tradition handed from Crassus all the way to Justinian.

Alex

During the retreat to Armenia section there is a typo - or speecho I guess - 19:29-19:31 "Snowstorms slowed their process even further" instead of 'progress'. Great video!

Gordian III

Brilliant! I LOVE your videos (more than Anthony likes killing people) which says a LOT : )

Gordian III

I like the fact that you take a realistic look at what Anthony was doing when he reorganized the East. Others simply say that he was madly giving away provinces to Cleopatra and was crazy, but you are different, which i love : )

Jake R

I really love how Antony desperately tried to stabilize the Roman east with this stuff, only for it to eventually devolve into one of the least stable entities in history in the Byzantine empire. Great video Historia, you’ve really helped me fall in love with Roman history.

Matthijs

Great video, again! Very happy to support you in making these available.

DH

Another amazing vid, and THANK YOU for creating these! They inspired me to start reading Roman history about a year ago, and I haven't looked back since!

Enzo Fischer

Great video, glad to have joined Patreon!

Stephen exley

Anthony getting pregnant is the biggest "no fucking waaay" I've ever had when learning about Roman history. 😉 Keep it up with the outtakes my man. If you ever went to comicon I'd wait in line longer than a neckbeard waiting to sniff Jessica nigri.

Genesis1864

Yay! Labienus's son! oh... Labinenus's son :(

Maaruin

Wait, there are pro-Antony sources?

Christoffer Karlsson

Another Great video! If there is any way that I (and other interested ones, I presume) could see that cut away part about the 'triumph' in Alexandria, I would gladely pay a bit extra for just a short standalone clip. Even if it is just ~5 minutes. Again, thanks, you really are my favourite creator ❤

Jack Downes

Me too! I think it's the first character break in the whole channel. Very humanising imo.

Scritch

More bloopers!!

Dang Quang

I still dont see how that system of alliances based on the Egyptian Empire would ensure Egyptian's loyalty toward the Roman state, especially if let's say they captured Parthia. Great video as always

SpockHere

Awesome video as always!

Richard

babe i know we had a date planned for tonight but the new historia civilis vid just dropped...

Mark Bobkiewicz-Greene

I guess the idea was Caesarian would get on the throne and he was Roman so would have loyalty and before that Antony would just maintain good relations with cleopatra?

Michael Quinn

What happened to the religious significance after the empire became Christian? Once the western empire fell apart did they still do triumphs in Constantinople?

Harrison Martin

i absolutely love everything you make, and the improvements over the past couple years have definitely been noticeable. my only complaint is that in your attempt to counter the usual pro-caesar bias, you seem to go WAY harder on Octavian and way less hard on Antony than necessary; both of them were pretty bad people by modern standards. still an amazing video though, keep it up!

ElPedroUnido

Hi! Just became a Patreon and I have been super lucky it seems! As a map lovers, can you tell us what was that tiny corner of southern Asia Minor/ modern Turkey that was not under Roman control? (I couldn't stop looking at it the whole video) Thanks and great work!!!!

Patrick Siu

He was rather anti-Antony back in late Caesar videos as well as Cicero's Finest Hour, and he's obviously emphasising that Antony must have killed his own wife in favour of Cleopatra here. As long as someone is anti-Republic / anti-human-rights he would be all-out against them. Antony just happened to be on a more "sympathetic" side at the end.

Patrick Siu

Both Crassus and Antony probably had taken something more than they could handle. Had Caesar not been killed he might meet the same. Maybe the assassins should have let him go.

Patrick Siu

Maybe make a separate video at some time about this. An occasional shortie can satisfy your viewers and subscribers.

Patrick Siu

Considering how slow and twisted information could spread 2000 years ago, I can't say I don't sympathise Octavian when he heard that Antony had made a statement, that COULD make a LOT of people challenge his position even if that's NOT Antony's intention.

Patrick Siu

Both Labienus' son and Pompey's sons (and later, as we know, son of Caesar himself) were threats to Antony and Octavian. Cicero's son, on the other hand...

Historia Civilis

I'm also in the "Caesar's Parthian campaign probably would have gone badly" camp.

lazarusinashes

I guess it depends on the circumstances. All historians have their biases; I recently read Michael Parenti's "The Assassination of Julius Caesar" and he is a diehard Caesarian (and somewhat pushed me to his side). However, he despises Octavian too. HC's point of view seems to be anti-authoritarian, as was Parenti's. Where the two diverge is whether Caesar's authoritarian tendencies were necessary or not; HC implies that it wasn't because it blatantly scorned republicanism, but Parenti says yes, at least for some time, because the aristocratic class's grip on Roman society was so entrenched in its institutions that in order to weaken it, one could not go through the normal paradigm of waiting for the Senate to pass legislation. Antony was also obviously authoritarian, but in this video, his authoritarian tendencies were not on full display, whereas Octavian simply confiscated land, among other things.

DH

Seconded!

Kyle Laffey

Ehh, idk. Had Caesar lived Rome would have been “unified” at the time he began the invasion of Parthia. He could have leveraged more Legions and more supplies. Also Caesar understood how important supply lines were. You gotta think he would have left a few legions to protect the baggage train. That being said his plans were lofty to say the least.

Patrick Siu

One can say that Antony has been so busy campaigning (and making mistakes) that he had little chance to be unnecessarily authoritarian. The establishing moment that he was an autocratic jerk was when he ordered the death of Cicero.

Ross

How has it taken me so long to notice this?!

Ross

This ^^ What's goin here?

Emperor Claudius

30:13 maybe he just had a beer belly from all that heavy drinking

Kevin

I guess I don't necessarily think you have to be either pro-Caesar or anti-Caesar. You can recognize that Caesar made a lot of very beneficial and in some cases very necessary reforms to the Romans. At the same time it's also, in my opinion, undeniably true that Caesar was more authoritarian than he needed to be. He obviously liked the idea of being King enough that he teased it constantly, and even if it wasn't his initial goal prior to the Roman civil war it certainly was an ambition he took afterwards when the opportunity presented itself and he had unchallenged political power.

Oriskó Norbert

That would be Lycia. They were in military alliance with Rome at this time. They got occupied later by Emperor Claudius.

Hudson Huth

The only question is, how far will this series go? Best Roman history series since Mike Duncan

Dargthur Digby Sellers

In this video you mention that there was no evidence of Caesar and Cleopatra having a child, but in your "Cleopatra & the Siege of Alexandria" video you hint that the child may actually be Caesar's. Have you changed your mind on this topic? FWIW Wikipedia (I know...) simply claims he is the biological son of Caesar. Is the only part Antony made up the marriage part?

Historia Civilis

Caesarian *was* Caesar's child, the controversy was over whether he was Caesar's LEGITIMATE child. The question comes down to marriage. It would have had all sorts of implications, legal and otherwise. (Octavian's massive inheritance from Caesar would have been thrown into question, for starters.) Antony made the claim with absolutely no evidence, and I say in the video that it's impossible for his claim to be true since we know that Caesar was married to a Roman woman this entire time.

Jean Hautier

I had never considered Antony's action as a well-constructed strategy. Cool! It balances out the character a little (just a little :o) On a side note: I loved the flute-player squares. The whole galere scene was actually surprisingly evocative. Good job :D

Dargthur Digby Sellers

Is the "Son of Lebienus" who was sent to Parthia to negotiate on behalf of the Conspirators, the same son that fought for the Parthians here? Seems like an interesting character.

Andrew Stockwell

It's crazy how the actions of the Roman Empire match those of empires thousands of years later. History really has a way of repeating itself. All this is leading up to the founding moments of Christianity, and I don't doubt that Antony's actions had profound impact on the Jewish population in the area. Appointing Herod in Judea was important but I feel like it's alluding to a future video :)

JustlookingCQ

can't believe this shit... I feel like the guy who beat him should've gotten more cred

Funtime _1008

Never in my life have I been so exited for squares

JustlookingCQ

He also kind of made everyone after him want to be a dictator due to how successful he was... His descendants weren't so

Bryton J Swan

totally forgot I left this question, thank you for such a detailed response!

LiterallyJudas

Feel like a better tagline would be "Mediocre Roman Leaders Who Are Incredibly Lucky To be Surrounded By Other Mediocre Leaders, and Cleopatra"

Lucas Campos

I would be lying if I said I did not shed a tear when my boy Green Square Cicero died.