An angry, grief-stricken crowd gathered in the Roman Forum to see his corpse and hear Mark Antony's funeral oration. Antony appealed to Caesar's divinity and vowed vengeance on his killers. A fervent popular cult to "divus Julius" followed. It was forcefully suppressed but the Senate soon succumbed to Caesarian pressure and confirmed Caesar as a "divus" of the Roman state. A comet interpreted as Caesar's soul in heaven was named the "Julian star" ("sidus Iulium") and in 42 BC, with the "full consent of the Senate and people of Rome", Caesar's young heir, his great-nephew Octavian, held ceremonial apotheosis for his adoptive father. In 40 BC Antony took up his appointment as "flamen" of the "divus Julius". Provincial cult centres ("caesarea") to the "divus" Julius were founded in Caesarian colonies such as Corinth. Antony's loyalty to his late patron did not extend to Caesar's heir: but in the last significant act of the long-drawn civil war, on 1 August 31 BC, Octavian defeated Antony at Actium.