Marcus Antonius: Consummate Traveler

Our own age has made getting around from place to place so easy. Hop a flight to London, take a scenic train trip through the Canadian Rockies, or road-trip it to Yellowstone over summer vacay. 

Two-thousand years ago, things were much different, without modern modes of transportation. However, because the Mediterranean basin lent itself so well to sea-travel, people could get places much more easily than some imagine. That being said, travel generally depended on social status and occupation, as well as whether one had the money to cover expenses. Granted, sea merchants probably accrued the most mileage, though often their routes were repetitive and seldom changed. Sea captains, hiring themselves out for voyages were undoubtedly the best-traveled.

Marcus Antonius' first "major" trip, according to Plutarch, was to Athens as a student. He left when he was bankrupt, and ancient sources suggest that it was Julius Caesar who helped him launch that part of his life. During his stay in Athens, he somehow met Aulus Gabinius and was given command of Gabinius's cavalry during his command as proconsul in Syria. With rebellion breaking out in Judea, much of Marcus's time was spent in those southern reaches of loosely compiled Roman Syria, chasing Hasmonean rebels and quelling skirmishes. After that, he wound up trekking to Egypt to assist Ptolemy Auletes back onto his unsteady throne. All of this was when he was in his mid-twenties... a young man, to be sure.

Compared to most in his day, he was well-traveled. 

Sometime around Julius Caesar's two incursions into Britannia, Marcus joined him in Gaul. There is no historical evidence indicating that he was with Caesar on either trip to ancient Britain. However, there is also nothing that DIS-proves whether he went. In Second in Command, Marcus joins Caesar on the second voyage to British shores. So now, here's a guy in his twenties, two-thousand years ago, who has been all the way to Athens, Greece, through the Middle East into what is now Syria and parts of Israel, then over to Egypt, THEN north of Italy through Gaul (France) on into Britannia.

And that was just the beginning. After Caesar's assassination, Marcus had plenty of business in northern Italy and southern Gaul. Then, it was back to Greece for a trans-Greco journey across the Via Egnatia (Rome's Greek super-highway) all the way to Macedonia, which was pretty much northeastern Greece. Here is where he and Octavian beat Brutus and Cassius at Philippi and from there, he took over the Eastern portion of Rome's fledgling "empire". 

Marcus Antonius was literally all OVER the Roman "east" for the next nine years, implementing client kingdoms that would continue under imperial rule. He made at least two major sea voyages across the Mediterranean to meet with Octavian and form new alliances and agreements. It was also during this nine-year stint that he journeyed as far east as modern day Kurdish Iran, to an ancient city called Phraaspa--part of the Median east. The tale of what occurs on that campaign will appear in my next and final book of the Antonius Trilogy. 

To close, I did an experiment, using ORBIS (The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World). I (loosely) went through Marcus's lifetime, jotting down the departure points and destinations of places he covered in his fifty-three some odd years. On foot, by ship, horse, or wagon, he traveled a MINIMUM distance of 22,577 kilometers (14,028 miles). 

Pretty impressive for a guy who never flew in an airplane, drove a car, or rode a train.

Brook Allen on part of the ancient Via Egnatia in Philippi, Greece. This city was founded by Phillip of Macedon, Alexander the Great's father. It lies very near the battlefield of Philippi, where the forces of Marcus Antonius and Octaviandefeated Brutus and Cassius.