Marcus Agrippa Read online

  By tradition, Roman men and women in extended families often had the same name. Agrippa’s daughters and granddaughters took the feminine form of the family’s nomen genticulum with the result that there are several women with the name Vipsania Agrippina. To distinguish between them modern historians refer to Vipsania Agrippina (first wife of Tiberius), Agrippina Maior or ‘the Elder’ (wife of Germanicus) and Agrippina Minor or ‘the Younger’ (mother of Nero). The reader will be forgiven for thinking that studying the Domus Augusta, the House of Augustus, can quickly become very confusing: it is, even for people intimately familiar with the Roman period. With that in mind, I have tried to use the singular name Agrippa throughout to refer to the man who is the subject of this biography. The family tree will help the reader understand the branches of the House of Agrippa.

  Where a place has a Latin name I prefer to use it since the modern name creates a false impression of the scale and feel of the ancient place – hence Oppidum Ubiorum (founded by Agrippa) rather than Cologne, which at this time more likely looked like a town of the American Wild West. In other cases, where the modern place name is unfamiliar to most readers I use the ancient name, such as Antiocheia on the Orontes (in Roman Syria) rather than Antakya (now in Turkey). Some ancient places in the East have both Latin and Greek names, such as Corcyra and Kerkyra, in which case I tend to use the original Greek form. The exceptions are Actium, Athens, Egypt and Rome, because to use Athenae (or Athenai), Aegyptus and Roma would be unnecessarily pedantic; and places for which the ancient name is not known I use the modern name unless there is a well-known Anglicism. I have listed ancient and modern place names on page 230 for convenience.

  The names and places used by the indigenous peoples of Rome’s empire and the lands on its borders who sided with or fought against the Romans are only known to us through Greek and Latin writings. Similarly a few tribal chieftains and kings are known but only by Romanized or Hellenized names. The Parthian king of kings Frahâtak is generally known to readers in English by the ‘westernized’ (actually the Greek) form Phraates.

  The Latin version is used for Roman officer ranks, arms, equipment and battle formations throughout the text since there is often no modern equivalent. Definitions of the terms are listed in the Glossary. Similarly with legal and political terms: the Roman republic Agrippa was born into was a complex structure of elected magistrates, assemblies of citizen voters and the Senate. For readers unfamiliar with the principal institutions and roles of its officials, I recommend starting with a reading of Appendix 1 before diving into the main narrative.

  Writing about the ancient world involves making several editorial decisions and presentational compromises. Chronology is one of them. The Romans had their own calendar using the names of each year’s consuls (see page xxviii), and ancient historians routinely refer to dates in this way. For modern readers, it is cumbersome and very confusing. Our own style of identifying years by serial numbers makes life so much easier! However, in respect of dates, I have adopted the increasingly accepted conventions BCE (Before the Common Era) instead of BC (Before Christ), and CE (Common Era) for AD (anno Domini). I am aware some readers dislike this newer format, but it is common in research literature – popular historian Mary Beard is on record in A Don’s Life (26 September 2011) as stating the convention has been around for years and that about half of the academic papers published on Ancient History display dates in this format – and even the BBC now uses it. Thus, Agrippa was born in 64 BCE (or 64 BC) and Augustus died in 14 CE (AD 14).

  The job of a biographer is to present as accurate and unbiased an account as possible – warts and all – of his chosen subject’s life but also to make the story compelling reading. Establishing, checking and interpreting facts makes for an intellectually stimulating journey as lines of inquiry take one this way or that. Like a detective, asking questions, examining evidence, having an open mind and a willingness to follow the leads wherever they go are the essential prerequisites to successfully solving a case. In the final analysis, however, as one strives to make the man come alive on the page the writing itself is a lonely endeavour, with the inner voice being both constant companion and sternest critic. I hope the result is a truthful and compelling account of the life of one of Ancient Rome’s most successful generals and consequential sons.

  To the shades of Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, consul three times, I present this book. Arma virumque cano.

  Lindsay Powell

  St Patrick’s Day, March 2013

  Austin, Texas

  Acknowledgements

  There are several people who deserve my thanks for helping me with this project. I start with family and friends. My partner, mother, brother and my friend Sonia St James (self-styled ‘muse to creative minds’) have all offered much appreciated encouragement throughout the project. To my commissioning editor, Philip Sidnell, who responded enthusiastically to my proposal for this, my third book for Pen & Sword, I shall again always be grateful. To Noel Sadler, who laid out these pages, Dominic Allen who created the jacket, and Matt Jones who supervised the whole production process, I offer my sincere thanks.

  I feel very honoured that Steven Saylor agreed to provide the foreword to Marcus Agrippa. Steven has a remarkable talent for making the ancient world come alive for modern readers. He has studied the Roman world in particular for many years. As the author of the fictional Roma Sub Rosa series set in the last days of Republican Rome he is well-qualified to compose the opening remarks. It was into this age of political and military giants that Agrippa was born. I have enjoyed several discussions with him over dinner in Austin, Texas and have always come away from them with new insights into the ancient past, the study of which we both so much enjoy.

  This book tells the story of Marcus Agrippa in both words and pictures. I offer my thanks to the helpful staff of The Perry-Castañeda Library of The University of Texas at Austin, who allowed me access to their amazing collection of books, many now out of print. For helping me to illustrate the story, I offer my thanks to Shanna Berk Schmidt of Harlan J. Berk, Ltd, Chicago, and Richard Beale of Roma Numismatics Limited, London, for kindly providing images of coins. From the re-enactment world, I must thank Chris Haines, MBE, Mike Knowles, and members of The Ermine Street Guard, a registered charity in England, of which I am proud to say I am a veteran member, for use of their photographs. For images of Roman portrait busts, I express my gratitude to Marie-Lan Nguyen in France, and for the Praeneste warship to Jasper Oorthuys, editor-in-chief of the excellent Ancient Warfare magazine, published by Karwansaray B.V. in The Netherlands, and for which I am news editor.

  War stories cannot be told without the aid of maps. Erin Greb of Erin Greb Cartography did a marvellous job of producing the maps of Agrippa’s travels to my exact specifications. My thanks also to Ian Hughes for drawing the plans of the Campus Martius and Portus Iulius, and to Alex Swanston at Pen & Sword for the one of the Battle of Actium

  I have quoted extracts from several ancient authors’ works whose voices lend authenticity to the narrative. For the translations, I used: Appian of Alexandria’s Ῥωμαϊκά, translated by Horace White in Appian’s Roman History (London: MacMillan and Co., 1899); Augustus’ Res Gestae, translated by Thomas Bushnell, BSG, and reproduced with permission (1998); Julius Caesar’s Commentarii de Bello Gallico, translated by Edward Brooks in The First Six Books of the Gallic War (Chicago: The Cenn Publishing Company, 1896); Cornelius Nepos’ Vitae, ‘Life of T. Pomponius Atticus’, in Lives of Eminent Commanders, translated by the Rev. John Selby Watson, MA (London: George Bell and Sons, 1886) pp. 305–450; Cassius Dio’s Ῥωμαϊκὴ Iστορία (Romaiki Istoria), translated by Herbert Balwin Foster in Dio’s Roman History, Volume 4 (New York: Pafraets Book Company, 1905), and E. Cary, based on the version by H.B. Foster, in Dio’s Roman History (London: William Heinemann, 1917); Cicero’s Epistulae, translated by Evelyn S. Shuckburgh in The Letters of Cicero: The Whole Extant Correspondence in Chronological Order (London: George
Bell and Sons, 1905); Cicero’s Oratio pro L. Murena, translated by C.D. Yonge in The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 2 (London: Bell, 1891); Cicero’s Tusculanae Disputationes, translated by C.D. Yonge in Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1877); Frontinus’ de Aqueductu Urbis Romae translated by Charles E. Bennett in the Loeb edition, 1925; Hippokates’ Περί Aγμών (Peri Agmon), translated by Francis Adams in The Genuine Works of Hippocrates, Volume 2 (London: Sydenham Society, 1849); Horace’s Carmina, translated by John Conington in The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace Translated Into English Verse (London: Bell and Daldy, Third Edition, 1865); Josephus’ Contra Apionem, translated by William Whiston in The Genuine Works of Flavius Josephus (New York: William Borradaile, 1824); Ovid’s Fasti and Epistulae Ex Ponto, translated by Henry T. Riley in The Fasti, Tristia, Pontic Epistles, Ibis and Haleiuticon of Ovid (London: Bell and Daldy, 1872); Nikolaus of Damaskos’ Bίος Καῖσαρος (Bios Kaisaros by Clayton M. Hall in Nicolaus of Damascus: Life of Augustus, Translated with a Commentary (Johns Hopkins University, 1922); Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia, translated by John Bostock and H.T. Riley in The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3 (London: Henry Bohn, 1855), and Jonathan Couch, in The Wernerian Club’s Pliny’s Natural History (London: George Barclay, 1848); Pliny the Younger’s Epistulae Selectae, translated by John Delaware Lewis in The Letters of the Younger Pliny (London: Keegan Paul, 1890); Plutarch’s Oὶ Bίοι Παράλληλοι (Oi Vioi Paralleloi), translated by John Langhorne and William Langhorne in Plutarch’s Lives (London: William Tegg, 1868); Strabo’s Γεωγραφικά (Geographika), translated by Horace Leonard Jones in The Geography of Strabo (London: William Heinemann, 1930); Suetonius’ De Vitae Caesarum, translated by Alexander Thomson in The Lives of the Twelve Caesars (London: George Bell and Sons, 1893); Tacitus’ Ab Excessu Divi Augusti (Annales), translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Bodribb in The Annals of Tacitus (London: MacMillan and Co., 1906); Tacitus’ De Origine et Situ Germanorum, translated by R.B. Townshend in The Agricola and Germania of Tacitus (London: Methuen and Co., 1894); and Velleius Paterculus’ Historiae Romanae, translated by John Selby in Sallust, Florus and Velleius Paterculus (London: George Bell, 1889); and Zosimus Istoria Nea, translated anonymously in New History (London: Green and Chaplin, 1814).

  Lastly, my thanks go to Bob Durrett, an enthusiastic and engaging teacher of Latin, who kindly provided the evocative translation of Seneca the Elder’s Controversiae.

  List of Illustrations

  Figures

  1. Obverse and reverse of a denarius, Syd. 1301, of the Ides of March. (Courtesy of Classical Numismatic Group)

  2. Architectural view of the ‘Mouth of the Cloaca Maxima on the Tiber’ drawn by Giovanni Battista Piranesi in Antichità Romane de’ tempo della prima Repubblica e dei primi imperatori (Roman Antiquities of the Time of the First Republic and the First Emperors), Vol. 1, 1756

  3. The Battle of Actium re-imagined in John Clark Ridpath’s Encyclopaedia of Universal History, Hunt and Eaton, New York, 1890, p. 257

  4. Ground plan of the Pantheon by Rodolfo Lanciani from The Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, New York, 1897, p. 474

  5. ‘Internal View of the Pronaos of the Pantheon’ drawn by Giovanni Battista Piranesi in Antichità Romane de’ tempo della prima Repubblica e dei primi imperatori (Roman Antiquities of the Time of the First Republic and the First Emperors), Vol. 1, 1756

  6. Agrippa’s Orbis Terrarum reconstructed as Commentaries

  7. Pont du Gard aqueduct in Charles-Louis Clérisseau’s Antiquités de la France, 1804

  8. Inscription of M. Vipsanius Narcissus, rogator ab scaena, CIL VI.10094. (Drawn by the author)

  9. Bust of Agrippa in A. Baumeister’s Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums, Verlag von R. Oldenbourg, Munich, 1885, Vol. I, p. 27

  10. Ground plan of the Odeion of Agrippa, first phase (late first century BCE) in the Agora, Athens. (By permission of Agora Excavations, American School of Classical Studies, Athens)

  11. Cross section of the Odeion of Agrippa, first phase (late 1st century BCE), looking east in the Agora, Athens drawn by John Travlos. (By permission of Agora Excavations, American School of Classical Studies, Athens)

  12. Remains of ‘ancient buildings including the sepulchral urn of evvia porphory of M. Agrippa’ drawn by Giovani Battista Piranesi in Antichità Romane de’ tempo della prima Repubblica e dei primi imperatori (Roman Antiquities of the Time of the First Republic and the First Emperors), Vol. 1, 1756

  13. Augustus’ Mausoleum, Rome. (Reconstruction by the author after G. Gatti and H. von Hesburg)

  14. ‘View of the Pantheon of Agrippa’ drawn by Giovanni Battista Piranesi in Antichità Romane de’ tempo della prima Repubblica e dei primi imperatori (Roman Antiquities of the Time of the First Republic and the First Emperors), Vol. 1, 1756

  Plates

  1. Marble bust of Agrippa in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin, inv. 1858. (Gunnar Bach Pedersen/Wikimedia Commons)

  2. Marble bust of Agrippa from Gabii in the Louvre, Inv. Ma1208. (Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikmedia Commons)

  3. Marble bust of Agrippa in the Louvre, Inv. Ma3554. (Marie-Lan Nguyen/ Wikmedia Commons)

  4. Marble bust of Agrippa in the NyCarlsberg Glyptotek, Inv. 609. (Cnyborg/ Wikimedia Commons)

  5. Marble bust of Augustus

  6. Centurion equipped as in the late first century BCE. (By permission The Ermine Street Guard)

  7. Signifer, imagnifer, cornicen and vexilifer equipped as in the late first century BCE. (By permission The Ermine Street Guard)

  8. Legionary equipped as in the late first century BCE. (By permission The Ermine Street Guard)

  9. Close-up of legionary equipped as in the late first century BCE. (By permission The Ermine Street Guard)

  10. View of the Gulf of Pozzuoli from Punta Epitaffio across to the location of Portus Iulius (Denghiu /Wikimedia Commons)

  11. Bireme warship on the relief from the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia at Praeneste (Palestrina). (# Karwansaray B.V.)

  12. Dupondius of Caesar with ships prow and tower from Colonia Viennensis, RPC 517 (Courtesy of ROMA Numismatics)

  13. Denarius of Sex. Pompeius showing a galley, Crawford 483/2, Sydenham 1350. (Courtesy of ROMA Numismatics)

  14. Denarius of Caesar, Agrippa Consul designate, RSC 545. (Courtesy of ROMA Numismatics)

  15. Section of the Aqua Marcia at Romavecchia, Rome. (Chris 73/Wikimedia Commons)

  16. Remains of the Baths of Agrippa in the Via Arco Ciambella, Rome. (MM/Wikimedia Commons)

  17. Pantheon with the Agrippa inscription in bronze letters, CIL VI.896. (Martin Olsson/Wikimedia Commons)

  18. Denarius of Antonius and Caesar, Crawford 517/2, RSC 8a. (Courtesy of Harlan J. Berk)

  19. As of Kleopatra VII of Egypt, Svornos 1871. (Courtesy of Harlan J. Berk)

  20. Denarius of M. Antonius with bireme and insignia of Legio II, minted at Patrae, RSC 27. (Courtesy of ROMA Numismatics)

  21. View over the Gulf of Ambracia. (Mediocrity/Wikimedia Commons)

  22. Denarius of Caesar with naval trophy, RIC 265a, RSC 119. (Courtesy of ROMA Numismatics)

  23. Denarius of Caesar with Victory and Neptune, RIC I 256, BMC I 615. (Courtesy of ROMA Numismatics)

  24. Colossal statue of Agrippa in the Museo archeologico di Venezia, Venice. (Arnaud Fafournoux/Wikimedia Commons)

  25. Panoramic view of Mytilene, Lesbos. (Koutrolm/Wikimedia Commons)

  26. Fasti Consulares showing Agrippa’s consulships, CIL VI.10286, in the Museo Epigrafico, Rome. (Kruosio/Wikimedia Commons)

  27. Marble bust of M. Claudius Marcellus in the Louvre, Ma3547. (Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikmedia Commons)

  28. Denarius of Caesar, Agrippa and Caesar on bench, BMCRE I 115, RIC I 407 (R2). (Courtesy of ROMA Numismatics)

  29. Arcade of the Aqua Virgo at the Via del Nazzareno, Rome. (Lalupa/ Wikimedia Commons)

  30. The Maison Carreìe, Nîmes. (Danicho
u/Wikimedia Commons)

  31. Dupondius from Colonia Nemausus, RPC 525, RIC I 159. (Courtesy of Heritage Auctions)

  32. Denarius of Augustus, Agrippa wearing the corona rostrata, BMCRE I 121. (Courtesy of Harlan J. Berk)

  33. As of Agrippa, Agrippa Caesaraugusta, RPC I 381 (Wikimedia Commons)

  34. Agrippa on an inscription at the theatre in Mérida, AE 1911. (Caligatus/ Wikimedia Commons)

  35. Odeion of Agrippa, Agora, Athens. (Giovanni Dall’Orto/Wikimedia Commons)

  36. Agrippa and Iulia on an inscription in the Forum at Ephesus, ILS 8897 (Ingsoc/Wikimedia Commons)

  37. Agrippa on the Ara Pacis Augustae, Rome. (Photo # Jos Lamboo)

  38. Denarius of Caesar with Agrippa and star, BMCRE I 124. (Courtesy of ROMA Numismatics)

  39. As of Augustus (or Tiberius or Caligula) with Agrippa and Neptunus, BMCRE I 122, RIC I 817. (Photo ROMA Numismatics. Author’s collection)

  40. Marble bust of C. Caesar in the British Museum, Inv. GR1870.07-05. (Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikmedia Commons)

  41. Marble bust of Agrippa Postumus in the Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome. (Folegandros/Wikimedia Commons)

  42. Marble bust of Agrippina the Elder found in the forum of Ziane, Tunisia, Inv. Babelon 45. (Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikmedia Commons)

  43. Bas relief of Agrippa at the Trevi Fountain (1732). (Marie-Lan Nguyen/ Wikmedia Commons)

  44. Bas relief of Agrippa at the Trevi Fountain (1732). (Marie-Lan Nguyen/ Wikmedia Commons)