Actium

Acron, Helenius (fl. second century c. e.) Roman author, whose main works included commentaries on Horace and Persius

Acron’s scholarship concerning other works, such as Terence’s Adelphi and Porphyrion, is now doubted. Little is known of his life.

Acta The laws and decrees enacted by the emperors of Rome. Under the Republic, elected officials swore to uphold the laws of the land. During the empire, this oath was extended to include as well the decrees, or acta, of the emperors. Each new emperor took an oath to uphold the acta. In many eras, however, these decrees or acta were limited only to those promulgated by Augustus in his time (the decrees of more recent emperors, especially in chaotic periods of the empire, were considered suspect or not worthy of notice). It was the decision of each new emperor whether to swear to uphold the decrees of his immediate predecessor or not. The senate possessed the right to rescind decrees of a deceased emperor or to ratify the acta of emperors still living (as they did with Augustus in 29 b. c.e.).

Acta were considered important because of the ramifications involved in precedents and posterity. Tiberius, for example, refused to allow the senate to vote oaths to him when he came to the throne, as his monstrous deeds would then be enshrined in the perpetual machinery of the acta. CLAUDIUS, meanwhile, made everyone swear to uphold the acta of Augustus but, like Tiberius, did not insist upon their taking oaths to him and his personal decrees.

Acta diurna A journal instituted by Julius caesar that recounted the great events of Rome, much like a modern newspaper, displayed on a whitened board (album) daily. This history was widely read and was used by Roman historians attempting to recreate the events of earlier eras. Tacitus mentions the acta diurna in his Annals.

Acta Senatus The official records of the proceedings and deeds of the Roman senate. The records were of interest to various historians, including tacitus, who used them to put together many of his own books, along with the information available in the ACTA DIURNA.

The record was useful not only in making an account of events and speeches in the senate, but it also singled out the friends and enemies of an emperor and his lieutenants. Men such as sejanus used the acta Senatus to keep a close watch on the senate and its deliberations, courtesy of its own account of itself.

Acte, Claudia (d. after 69 c. e.) Freedwoman from Asia Minor who became the mistress of Emperor Nero

Serving as a freedwoman in the imperial household, Acte came to NERO’s attention in 55. seneca, the imperial tutor and adviser, sensed that this infatuation could wean Nero away from his dominant mother, Agrippina the younger, and fostered the relationship. The couple, attempting to be discreet, were shielded by various court followers. As was inevitable, Nero lost interest in Acte and took up another mistress. Acte remained devoted, however, appearing after Nero’s death to claim his body, which she placed in the family tomb of the Domitii in the pincian Hills. Acte seems to have amassed considerable wealth during her period of imperial favor.

Actium An engagement was fought on the Ionian Sea on September 2, 31 b. c.e., just off the coast of this site, near the Ambracian Gulf, between the fleet of Octavian (Augustus) and the armada of Marc antony and cleopaTRA. This naval battle, in which Octavian proved victorious, decided the fate of the Roman world.

By 33 B. C.E., most political factions striving for power in the Republic had faded, leaving only the Triumvirs Octavian and Antony as rivals. In May 32, they became dire enemies when Antony divorced Octavian’s sister, Octavia (1), and married Cleopatra. Claiming that Cleopatra aspired to become the queen of Rome, and that in his will Antony distributed the Eastern provinces among his illegitimate children by Cleopatra, Octavian roused the senate and the Roman mob. They called for war against Antony, stripping him of his offices.

Both sides gathered large fleets and assembled legions, but Octavian, with his normal prudence, took his time. Finally, in 31 he set out with hundreds of ships and 40,000 men, landing in Greece and marching south to Mikalitzi, north of Nicopolis on the Bay of Comarus. Antony, possessing a like number of land forces, also had at his command a combined Roman-Egyptian fleet of 480 ships. The advantage rested with Antony because his naval vessels were large and heavy. Octavian, however, possessed two elements that were to prove pivotal to the outcome: his admiral agrippa and his lighter Liburnian ships, which were equipped with the harpax, a ram that pinned the opposing vessel and allowed for boarding and capture. Antony, encamped just south of Actium, nevertheless stood a good chance of victory.

The battle was really two encounters in a single day, the fierce naval conflict in the morning and a half-hearted rout on land that afternoon. The naval engagement began with the division of Octavian’s fleet into three sections—a center and two wings. Agrippa commanded the northern wing and was admiral in chief. arruntius led the center, and Octavian was in charge of the southern wing. On the Egyptian side, Antony took command of the northern squadrons, opposite Agrippa. Marcus Octavius was opposed to Arruntius, and Savius sailed against Octavian’s ships. cleopatra headed a reserve squadron of 60 ships behind the center of the Egyptian fleet.

4 Acts of the Pagan Martyrs

The tactical advantage fell to the commander who penetrated the other’s flanks, and here the battle was won by Agrippa. Antony fought valiantly, but the unreliable and disloyal ships of his center and south wing broke ranks. Cleopatra sailed to safety, probably signaled by Antony to do so, although the historian DIO cassius dismissed her flight as the act of a woman and an Egyptian. Antony, with his own ship pinned by a harpax, transferred to another vessel and also fled toward Egypt. Victory at sea was total for Octavian, and Antony’s general, CANDIDUS CRASSUS, faced a mutiny in his own ranks and surrendered.

An invasion of Egypt followed in July of 30, but Actium had already established Octavian as the undisputed master of Rome and its far-flung world. By August, Antony and Cleopatra were dead by their own hands. Octavian returned to Rome to become the first Roman emperor, Augustus. Plutarch and Dio Cassius wrote extensive versions of the battle.

See also civil wars (second triumvirate) and navy.

Acts of the Pagan Martyrs Literature that dates to the first century C. E., detailing the hardships and trials of Egyptian nationalists in Alexandria. Written in a dramatic and bitterly anti-Roman style, the work, mainly fragmentary, includes accounts from the period of Augustus to the era following the reign of MARCUS Aurelius.

Adaeratio The name given to the imperial process, normally initiated by government decree, in which goods or services could be commuted into issues or into similar monetary transactions.

Adlectio The process by which an individual was chosen to be a Roman senator. Generally, it was accomplished by being enrolled on the lists of the senate. This was an arbitrary process at times, and Caesar used it to increase senate numbers. The tradition was carried on by the emperors with some prudence and hesitation at first, as in the case of Augustus and Claudius, but Domitian, Macrinus, and others used it with enthusiasm.

Adoptio Or adoptatio, the name used for adoption, one of two principal areas of domestic relations in Rome with regard to parent and child, the other being lawful marriage. There were actually two variations of the process: adoptio and adrogatio. Adoption of a person not in the power of a parent (sui iuris) was called adrogatio. It was originally possible only in Rome and with the vote of the populace (populi auctoritate) in the Comitia Centuriata. By the first century B. C.E., the comitia was effectively replaced in this matter by 30 lictors who were asked their approval. Those citizens living in the provinces were not eligible for this approbation and were thus required to ask the permission of the emperor, beginning the process that came to be known as the adrogatio per rescriptum principis. From the time of Diocletian, this act was mandatory Adoptio involved a complex series of mancipa-tiones (emancipations) within the framework of a law in the XII Tables.

By the terms of adoption, a Roman citizen passed from one family to another, a change of family that meant that the adrogatus brought with him all persons under his potestas into the household of the adrogator, while acknowledging the patria potestas of the family’s head. It served a useful purpose both socially and politically, as a childless individual could adopt and ensure the continuation of the sacra of the family, bequeathing not just property to the heres (heir), but the family as well, for the new member accepted the name and rank of the adoptive father. Politically, adoption could be used to great advantage as a means of improving one’s prospects by becoming adopted into a higher class family—moving from the Plebeian to the Patrician class. The opposite movement had advantages of its own; Pulcher Clodius was adro-gated into a Plebeian family by a lex curiata in order to be eligible for election as tribunus plebis and so continue his struggles with Cicero.

Females could not be taken into a family through adrogation as the transaction involved the patria potestas. Adoption became very popular in the early empire as a result of the lex Julia et Papia Poppaea (9 c. e.), which granted definite privileges to those citizens with children, such as the eligibility to become praetors. Adoptions were hastily arranged, the office secured and then the adroga-tus given complete emancipation from the adoptive family By a senatus consultum during the reign of Nero (54-68 c. e.), this practice was curtailed. Antoninus Pius also moved to prevent premature (and potentially disastrous emancipations, the releasing of an adopted heir) by promulgating a law that ensured the rights of succession to the adopted. under the adoptiominus plena by Justinian (ruled 527-565), the adopted maintained a right of succession to the property and name of the former family, and was not subject to the patria potestas of the adoptive father; this law had its origins in the custom of the adopted retaining some association with his original gens, seen in the new name or gens, only the suffix ianus was added. An example of this was Emperor Augustus who, as Octavius, was adopted by the testament of his uncle Julius Caesar in 44 B. C.E., taking the full name Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. Adoption by testament, of course, was the naming of an heir through a will. However, the adopted was not the heir in the sense of regular adoptio or adrogatio, receiving only the name and property of the deceased without all of the other benefits or social considerations. Octavius therefore had Caesar’s adoption of him by testament made official by the curiae.