 Rome starves from a lack of grain, its usual shipments denied by Cleopatra and Antony in Egypt, a gambit to provoke Octavian into Civil War.Knowing war is not ideal due to Antony's popularity, Octavian enlists Octavia and Atia to go to Egypt to plead with Antony to restore the grain shipments to Rome.This task has already been tried and failed by diplomatic delegations empowered to offer any amount of money, which have been refused by Antony, gleefully making impossible demands of control over other provinces.