Mark Antony - Aftermath and Legacy

Aftermath and Legacy

Cicero's son, Cicero Minor, announced Antony's death to the senate. Antony's honours were revoked and his statues removed (damnatio memoriae). Cicero also made a decree that no member of the Antonii would ever bear the name Marcus again. “In this way Heaven entrusted the family of Cicero the final acts in the punishment of Antony.”

When Antony died, Octavian became uncontested ruler of Rome. In the following years, Octavian, who was known as Augustus after 27 BC, managed to accumulate in his person all administrative, political, and military offices. When Augustus died in 14 AD, his political powers passed to his adopted son Tiberius; the Roman Principate had begun.

The rise of Caesar and the subsequent civil war between his two most powerful adherents effectively ended the credibility of the Roman oligarchy as a governing power and ensured that all future power struggles would centre upon which of two (or more) individuals would achieve supreme control of the government, rather than upon an individual in conflict with the Senate. Thus Antony, as Caesar's key adherent and one of the two men around whom power coalesced following his assassination, was one of the three men chiefly responsible for the fall of the Roman Republic.