Third ROMAN Civil War

In unProfesor we offer you a summary of the Third Roman Civil War, a conflict that ended with Octavian's victory as Roman emperor and the beginning of the Roman Empire.

The 1st century BC c., was one of the most complex moments in Roman history, as civil wars occurred for control of power. The Roman civil wars tend to have influence on each other, and for this reason and after talking about the first and second civil war, we must talk about the third, being a direct consequence of the second.

Let's start this summary!

The Second Roman Civil War he settled with the victory of Julius Caesar, being named dictator of Rome, and taking all power thanks to his victory over Pompey. But Caesar's increase in power was not well received by all Romans, causing a political movement to assassinate him to begin to grow.

On the Ides of March in the year 44 BC. C., Julius Caesar was assassinated by a conspiracy among which were some of his main allies, such as Marcus Junius Brutus or Gaius Lacio Longinus. This group of conspirators thought that the Roman citizens would be happy about the death of the dictator, but the discontent of the plebs was total and they had to escape to Asia.

In Asia, the conspirators took numerous Roman provinces: from Macedonia to Syria. On the other hand, in Rome Caesar's allies began to govern the city through a triumvirate formed by Caesar Octavius, Mark Antony and Mark Aemilius Lepidus.

The tension in the triumvirate It was huge, especially between Mark Antony and Octavian, but they still shared the goal of avenging Julius Caesar. In 43 BC C., Mark Antony and Octavian left Rome, leaving Lepidus in charge, to march towards Asia and begin the Third Roman Civil War.

Now we are going to talk about what the Third Roman Civil War was like. The first force sent by Rome to start the war was about 28 legions, although another 8 legions were sent shortly after, so we can say that Rome launched all its forces to defeat the Caesaricides. (also known as liberators). As for the liberators, there were very few troops, since there were not many people who left aside the Roman plebs to join Brutus and Cassius.

The first major battle of the conflict took place at Philippi, city ​​of Macedonia, where Brutus faced Octavian, and Antony faced Cassius. The battle between Brutus and Octavian was quite even, forcing Octavian to return to his initial positions. On the other hand, Antony managed to defeat Cassius, forcing him to retreat.

Behind this, Cassius received a false report about Brutus' defeat, and fearing the end of his campaign, Cassius decided to commit suicide. Finally, Brutus collected the remains of Cassius's troops and regained positions, remaining alone as leader of the liberators, being a worse general than Cassius, well known for his victories. warlike.

On the same day of this battle, took place a confrontation by the sea, in which Brutus' naval forces destroyed the reinforcements of the Roman troops, ensuring that Octavian and Antony could not receive resources. All this made The Romans will seek a battle in the open field, knowing that they had a greater number of troops, at the same time that Brutus's allies asked him to attack the weakened Roman troops.

On October 23, the second battle of Philippi took place. where Brutus' troops were annihilated by those of Octavian and Antony. Brutus did not want to go to trial to be sentenced to death, so committed suicide before being caught. Thus, The triumvirate took absolute power of the Roman Republic.

To continue with this summary of the Third Roman Civil War, we must list some of the main consequences that this armed conflict had, being another episode of a series of civil clashes that ended with the Roman Republic.

The consequences of the third Roman civil war were the following:

• Many of the main Roman lineages disappeared when its main leaders died during the civil war, causing a vacuum in the Senate that joined the dozens of deaths of senators in previous years.
• The city of Philippi remained a Roman colony, being partly occupied by the liberating soldiers who had survived the war and received mercy from Rome.
• The Parthians had supported the liberators' side, so after the conflict between Rome and the Parthian Empire had a confrontation over the regions of Asia Minor. The confrontation between the Parthians and the Romans had been intermittent for centuries, but it was in this period that they began to have the toughest and longest confrontations.
• Octavio and Marco Antonio returned to their tensions prior to the war, which ended up provoking the Fourth Roman Civil War, pitting the supporters of both leaders against each other. This conflict can be considered the direct consequence of the third war, since many of the tensions between the two sides could already be found in this conflict.
• The power harvested by Octavian During the conflict, together with the subsequent one to defeat Mark Antony, brought about the appointment of him as the first emperor of Rome, thus, being born,the Roman Empire. It could be said that Octavian's power and influence began to develop in this conflict, making himself seen as a powerful and dangerous Roman general and politician that everyone feared.