79

About a hundred years ago, in an impressive book on Philippi, Paul Collart ended his chapter on the battle which famously happened by the fortifications of the town (42-41 BC) with these words: “A small fraction of the soldiers who were disbanded in great numbers soon after the battle, were sent to Philippi itself, according to Antony’s will; they settled down and started the colony there […]”. The Swiss archaeologist’s statement is very appealing since it allows us to link the colonizing process of Philippi by the Romans to a military feat which was critical for the rest of history, not only in this town but in the Roman world at large, and it has always been considered an irrefutable fact of Philippian historiography. And yet, the phrase “right after the battle” which has often been used by historians to date the foundation of the Antonian colony of Philippi, is remarkably vague if we are to associate this event to a precise political context. By taking into account the social and political situation in Rome and in Italy during the months following the battle and by reconsidering the data relating to the city at that time, this article attempts to place Antony’s colonial efforts that started at Philippi within a historical perspective which is larger than the mere local context in order to highlight the difficulties that remain when we try to reconcile such efforts with the political and institutional conditions of those times.