CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · History & Society

War of Mutina

a civil war between the Roman Senate and Mark Antony

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ741777
Source-derived summary

The War of Mutina (December 44 – April 43 BC; also called the Mutina war) was a civil war between the Roman Senate and Mark Antony in Northern Italy. It was the first civil war after the assassination of Julius Caesar. The main issue of the war was attempts by the Senate to resist Antony's forceful assumption of the strategically important provinces of Transalpine and Cisalpine Gaul from their governors. The Senate, led by Cicero and the consuls (Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Vibius Pansa), attempted to woo Julius Caesar's heir (today known in this period as Octavian, later the future emperor Augustus) to fight against Antony. Octavian, however, would pursue his own agenda.

The consuls, with Octavian, led troops into northern Italy against Antony and won two battles at Forum Gallorum and Mutina (14 and 21 April 43 BC). After the two consuls were mortally wounded at those battles, there emerged a political vacuum. Octavian – with the support of his men – demanded the consulship from the Senate and marched on Rome. After taking control of the city, Octavian and one of his kinsmen, Quintus Pedius, were irregularly elected consuls. They forced through legislation which had the effect of outlawing Julius Caesar's killers before starting negotiations with Antony.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “War of Mutina” is a civil war between the Roman Senate and Mark Antony. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Mutina, civil and between, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current 209-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Mutina, civil and between is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “a civil war between the Roman Senate and Mark Antony” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q741777.

Critical limits

Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “War of Mutina”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow War of Mutina primary sources, War of Mutina archive and Mutina research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “War of Mutina”?
  2. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from War of Mutina” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.