Marcus Antonius Antyllus
son and heir of Mark Antony
47 BCE to 30 BCE
Marcus Antonius Antyllus (47 BCE – August 23, 30 BCE) is known as Marcus Antonius Minor to distinguish him from his famous father, the Roman Triumvir Marc Antony (Marcus Antonius Major).
He is also called Antyllus, a nickname given to him by his father meaning "the Archer".
Despite his three children by Cleopatra, Marc Antony designates Antyllus as his official heir, a requirement under Roman law and a designation that probably contributes to his execution at age seventeen by Octavian (later the Emperor Augustus).
World
The Middle of The Earth
View →Related Events
Showing 1 events out of 1 total
Octavian, now close to absolute power, does not intend to give Antony and Cleopatra a rest, although it is nearly a year before Octavian reaches his two principal enemies in Egypt.
Assisted by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa in August 30 BCE, he invades.
Marching on Alexandria, he is initially repulsed by Antony’s forces.
Antony, with no other refuge to which he can escape, commits suicide by stabbing himself with his sword in the mistaken belief that Cleopatra had already done so.
When he finds out that Cleopatra is still alive, his friends bring him to Cleopatra's monument in which she is hiding, and he dies in her arms. (However, some sources claim that he did not commit suicide but was killed by an Egyptian priest who favored Octavian.)
Cleopatra, after her capture by Octavian, is allowed to conduct Antony's burial rites.
Realizing that she is destined for Octavian's triumph in Rome, she makes several attempts to take her life and is finally successful in mid-August, probably by permitting herself to be bitten by a poisonous asp (alternately, she may, on Octavian’s orders, have been beheaded).
Cleopatra's son by Caesar, Caesarion, is proclaimed pharaoh by the Egyptians, after Alexandria falls to Octavian.
Caesarion is captured and killed, his fate reportedly sealed when one of Octavian's advisers paraphrased Homer: "It is bad to have too many Caesars."
This ends not just the Hellenistic line of Egyptian pharaohs, but the line of all Egyptian pharaohs.
The daughter and two sons of Cleopatra and Antony are spared and taken back to Rome where, after being paraded through the streets, they are cared for by Antony's wife, Octavia Minor.
The daughter, Cleopatra Selene, is married through arrangements of Octavian to Juba II of Mauretania.
Antony’s elder son and designated heir, the seventeen-year-old Marcus Antonius Antyllus, is killed by Octavian's men while pleading for his life in the Caesareum.
The Ptolemaic kingdom of Egypt is no more.
The seizure of Cleopatra's treasure enables Octavian to pay off his veterans and make him finally master of the entire Greco-Roman world.