As Antony marched his survivors on to Antioch, his wife Octavia was traveling to meet him with money, supplies and clothing for his soldiers. She also brought an additional 2,000 fully equipped troops, courtesy of her brother Octavian. It was not the 20,000 he had promised, and their arrival came much too late. Octavian also returned 85 battered ships of the 120 that Antony had loaned him to fight Sextus Pompeius.

Defeated by his enemy and betrayed by his brother-in-law, Antony was furious. In Rome, however, Antony was seen as a villain due to his crushing losses at the hands of the barbarians and his ill treatment of Octavia. She was still apparently devoted to him and had done everything in her power to aid him, but when he reached Antioch Antony coldly advised her not to come to him. Upon her return to Rome, Octavian took offense at the insult to his sister, but Octavia refused to be the cause of the next civil war. She loyally continued to live in Antony’s house and raise his children, both hers and Fulvia’s. Roman public opinion turned decidedly against her adulterous husband. Ironically, Octavia’s loyalty to her husband helped to seal his fate.

Meanwhile, civil war broke out in Parthia. The King of Media, so recently besieged by Antony, now appealed to him for support in a dispute with Phraates. Antony promised to come to his aid, but instead of launching a spring campaign, he dallied in Alexandria until the summer of 34 bc.

On his second journey to the East, Antony subjugated Armenia and took King Artavasdes prisoner in revenge for his perfidy. The Armenian king who had betrayed both Crassus and Antony was bundled off to Alexandria, where he was imprisoned until after Antony’s and Cleopatra’s naval defeat at Octavian’s hands at Actium in 31 bc. Then a vindictive Cleopatra had him put to death. Armenia would long remember that insult.

After capturing Artavasdes, Antony traveled again to Media. This time he was well received, although given his diminished army he had no real help to give. Instead he betrothed one of his young sons by Cleopatra to the daughter of the Median king as a way of making an alliance, and then took his leave. Events in the West overtook his dreams of Eastern conquest, as he turned west to meet Octavian.

The Parthian campaign was the turning point in Antony’s fortunes. While he was losing up to 30,000 irreplaceable men and a foreign war, Octavian was consolidating his hold over the Western empire and the hearts of his fellow Romans.

Antony’s invasion of Media was a disaster from which he never recovered. The loss of so many loyal and disciplined troops could not be made up in time for the Battle of Actium. The struggle for the Roman world might have been very different had Antony triumphed against Parthia. But he, like Crassus, had underestimated his enemy. Antony’s fate was sealed in Iran. MH