stern princes saw the light and quietly went over
to the camp of Octavius. Several days of inaction followed, during
which the desertions continued and the rumor of Antony's flight
found increasing belief. On the seventh day, Canidius, who found
himself in a hopeless dilemma, also went over to Octavius. This
desertion by the commander settled the rest of the force. A few
scattered into Macedonia, but the great bulk of the army and all
that was left of the fleet surrendered. Nineteen legions and more
than ten thousand cavalry thus came over to Octavius and took service
under him. This was the real victory of Actium. In the words of
the Italian historian Ferrero, "it was a victory gained without
fighting, and Antony was defeated in this supreme struggle, not
by the valor of his adversary or by his own defective strategy
or tactics, but by the hopeless inconsistency of his double-faced
policy, which, while professing to be republican and Roman, was
actually Egyptian and monarchical."

The story of the naval battle of Actium is a baffling problem to
reconstruct on account of the wide divergence in the accounts.
For instance, the actual number of ships engaged is a matter of
choice between the extremes of 200 to 500 on a side. And the
consequences were so important to Octavius and to Rome that the
accounts were naturally adorned afterwards with the most glowing
colors. Every poet who lived by the bounty of Augustus in later
years naturally felt inspired to pay tribute to it in verse. But the
actual naval battle seems to have been of an indecisive character.
For that matter, even after the wholesale surrender of Antony's
Roman army and fleet, neither Anthony nor Octavius realized the
importance of what had happened. Antony had recovered from worse
disasters before, and felt secure in Alexandria. Octavius at first
followed up his advantage with timid and uncertain steps. Only
after the way was made easy by the hasty submission of the Asiatic
princes and the wave of popularity and enthusiasm that was raised
in Rome by the news of the victory, did Octavius press the issue
to Egypt itself. There the war came to an end with the suicide
of both Antony and Cleopatra.

As in the case of the indecisive naval battle off the capes of
the Chesapeake, which led directly to the surrender of Cornwallis,
an action indecisive in character may be most decisive in results.
Actium may not have been a pronounced naval victory but it had
treme