e northern point,
garrisoned by the best of Antony's Roman veterans, defended one side of the
narrows. The other side was a low-lying, triangular stretch of land, dry,
sandy ground. The Greeks knew it as the _Akte_, just as the Italian sailors
still call it the _Punta_, both words having the same meaning, "the Point."
At its northern extremity on a rocky platform there rose a temple of
Apollo, known as the "Aktion," the "sanctuary of the point," a place of
pilgrimage for the fisher and sailor folk of the neighbourhood. Its name,
Latinized into _Actium_, became famous as that of the naval battle.

On the level ground by the temple was the camp of the army of Antony and
Cleopatra, a city of tents and reed-built huts, within its midst the gay
pavilions of the Court. It was a mixed gathering of many nations--Roman
legions commanded by veterans of the wars of Caesar; Egyptian battalions in
the quaint war dress we see on the painted walls of tombs by the Nile, and
the semi-barbarous levies of the tributary kings of Eastern Asia. There
were widespread dissension and mutual suspicion among the allies. Not a few
of the Romans were chafing at their leader's subservience to a "Barbarian"
queen. Many of the Eastern kinglets were considering whether they could not
make a better bargain with Octavian. The cavalry of both armies skirmished
among the hills on the land side of the Gulf, and prisoners made by
Octavian's troops readily took service with them. Then one of the Asiatic
kings, instead of fighting, joined the hostile cavalry with his barbaric
horsemen, and night after night Roman deserters stole into the camp of
Octavian on the northern height.

An attempt led by Antony in person against the Roman entrenchments was
beaten off. A detachment of the fleet tried to elude the vigilance of
Agrippa and slip out to sea, but had to retire before superior numbers.
Then both parties watched each other, while at the head-quarters of Antony
councils of war were held to debate upon a plan of campaign. The situation
was becoming difficult. For Octavian contented himself with holding his
fortified camp with his infantry, drawing his supplies freely from
over-sea, while his cavalry prevented anything reaching Antony's lines from
the land side, and Agrippa's fleet blockading the Gulf and sweeping the
sea, made it impossible to bring corn from Egypt. Provisions were running
short, and sickness was rife. A move of some kind must be made.

The ve