The Dawson Ledger
Event

Battle of Actium (31 BCE)

Naval battle ending the Triumviral civil wars and opening the Principate (Osgood 2006); naval-warfare link.

Greco-Roman

Event Details

  • Date: 2 September 31 BCE
  • Type: naval-battle
  • Civilizations: greco-roman

Description

Naval battle ending the Triumviral civil wars and opening the Principate (Osgood 2006); naval-warfare link.

Quantitative facts and their sourcing

  • Date 2 September 31 BCE; outcome: Octavian's victory. The wider War of Actium: March 32 - August 30 BCE (Wikipedia).
  • Wikipedia (stub): Octavian 250-400 galleys, ~2,500 killed; Antony/Cleopatra 250-500 larger galleys, 5,000+ killed, ~250 ships sunk or captured; war-level deaths listed as 50,000 vs 75,000. Ancient-derived; low confidence.
  • PRIMARY-SOURCE figures: Plutarch, Antony (Perrin transl., LacusCurtius, read 2026-10-12): 61 Antony had "one hundred thousand infantry soldiers and twelve thousand horsemen" (and a large fleet); Octavian "two hundred and fifty ships of war, eighty thousand infantry", about equal horse; 68 "not more than five thousand dead, but three hundred ships were captured, as Caesar himself has written". Ancient claims; the 300 ships figure is attributed by Plutarch to Augustus.

Confidence

low-medium. Numbers marked "Wikipedia-compiled (stub)" come from a secondary aggregator and must be upgraded to page-level scholarly citations before any Official use.

Citations

  • plutarch-antony-lacuscurtius [PRIMARY-READ] Plutarch, Bernadotte Perrin (transl.) (1920). Plutarch, Life of Antony 61 and 68 (B. Perrin transl., Loeb 1920, on LacusCurtius; read). Loeb Classical Library / LacusCurtius. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Antony*.html. Read 2026-10-12.
  • osgood2006-caesars-legacy [formal] Josiah Osgood (2006). Caesar's Legacy: Civil War and the Emergence of the Roman Empire. Cambridge University Press. https://openlibrary.org/works/OL8326038W. Verified 2026-10-11 (Open Library record found; edition exists, page-level not checked).
  • syme1939-roman-revolution [formal] Ronald Syme (1939). The Roman Revolution. Oxford University Press. https://openlibrary.org/works/OL12967008W. Verified 2026-10-11 (Open Library record found; edition exists, page-level not checked).
  • wp-battle-of-actium [STUB (secondary aggregator)] Wikipedia contributors (2026). Battle of Actium (Wikipedia; secondary aggregator, stub-grade). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Actium. Verified 2026-10-11 (resolves).
  • wp-final-war-roman-republic [STUB (secondary aggregator)] Wikipedia contributors (2026). War of Actium (Wikipedia; secondary aggregator, stub-grade). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Actium. Verified 2026-10-11 (resolves).

Review status

SOFT draft. Not Official. Needs editor review of CAD tags (estimated) and page-level citation upgrade.

About this entry

A draft entry preserved from civilization.study. Evidence grade: low. 3 of 5 listed sources are fully documented; the rest are names only. Method and sources

Conflict card

This card is generated from Civitas's war record and carries the same evidence badge as every other conflict card.

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naval battle · 2 September 31 BCE

Battle of Actium (31 BCE)

Naval battle ending the Triumviral civil wars and opening the Principate (Osgood 2006); naval-warfare link.

Evidence: Primary text read Draft estimate

What the record says

  • Unverified (Wikipedia-compiled) Date 2 September 31 BCE; outcome: Octavian's victory. The wider War of Actium: March 32 - August 30 BCE (Wikipedia).
  • Unverified (Wikipedia-compiled) Wikipedia (stub): Octavian 250-400 galleys, ~2,500 killed; Antony/Cleopatra 250-500 larger galleys, 5,000+ killed, ~250 ships sunk or captured; war-level deaths listed as 50,000 vs 75,000. Ancient-derived; low confidence.
  • Primary text PRIMARY-SOURCE figures: Plutarch, Antony (Perrin transl., LacusCurtius, read 2026-10-12): 61 Antony had "one hundred thousand infantry soldiers and twelve thousand horsemen" (and a large fleet); Octavian "two hundred and fifty ships of war, eighty thousand infantry", about equal horse; 68 "not more than five thousand dead, but three hundred ships were captured, as Caesar himself has written". Ancient claims; the 300 ships figure is attributed by Plutarch to Augustus.

Confidence. low-medium.

Where it sits

Sources and evidence

No page-level citation is claimed for any source. Figures marked unverified come from a Wikipedia aggregator and are not for Official use.

Link to this conflict

Art: Patterns of Civilization chronicle art, made with AI: illustrations, not historical evidence. Entries are drafts preserved from civilization.study. Method and sources.