Marcus Agrippa Read online

  Agrippa’s political career begins here. There is tantalizing evidence that he was appointed a tribune during his lifetime.139 This is the most likely moment in his long career that he could have assumed this position. The ten tribunes normally assumed the office on 10 December and served for a year (see Appendix 1). A tribune had the authority to convene assemblies of the plebs and propose acts which were binding (plebiscita), as well as the right to convoke the Conscript Fathers and propose senatus consulta. Having his own man in such a position would greatly help the young Caesar. In the office of tribune, Agrippa could veto any act committed by a magistrate, which included the senatus consulta, and even block fellow tribunes, all without fear of arrest or injury or the offender being declared an outlaw.

  To hunt down and bring to justice the remaining conspirators, who between them commanded more than twenty legions as well as a fleet of warships and cash, the Caesarians needed to combine forces.140 Among his first motions as consul Caesar had the decrees declaring Antonius, Lepidus, and the soldiers commanded by them, public enemies, repealed.141 Caesar immediately wrote to Antonius offering assistance if he needed it against D. Brutus. Antonius replied curtly that he would deal with the man himself. In one grisly account Antonius declined to meet Decimus but ordered him killed and, when the instruction was carried out, had his enemy’s head brought to him.142 Appian records that another assassin, Minucius Basilus, was killed by his slaves, some of whom he was in the process of castrating by way of punishment at the time.143

  Caesar then marched with five legions to Gallia Cisalpina and, on the banks of the Lavinius River near Mutina, met Antonius and Lepidus.144 At a two day conference, they carved up the Roman world among themselves.145 Caesar assumed responsibility for Africa, Sardinia and Sicily. Antonius was assigned the Gallic provinces, except Aquitania, and Lepidus received Aquitania, the Hispanic provinces and Italy.146 Eighteen towns in Italy, mostly those which had supported the conspirators, were earmarked to be divided up as though they were war spoils among their troops as an incentive for services to be rendered.147 The commission they set up, entitled the Triumviri Rei Publicae Constituendae Consulari Potestate – ‘Three Men with Consular Power for Confirming the Commonwealth’, abbreviated as III VIR RPC (plate 18) – was later recognized by law with the passing of the Lex Titia on 27 November.148 It was a temporary arrangement, intended to last just five years, but the new Triumvirate gave formal expression to its power backed by military might, as Iulius Caesar’s dictatorship had done.149 To bind the men together, young Caesar married Antonius’ daughter Clodia.150 Agrippa was not chosen as one of the triumvirs, but his close association with young Caesar effectively made him an unofficial junior partner at the council.

  It was becoming clear to all that a new civil war would ensue soon. To prosecute it the Commission of Three Men would need money in abundance. Between them they had forty-three legions, but the treasury to pay for them was effectively bare. The triumvirate resorted to confiscating the assets of its political enemies. Following the examples of Marius and Sulla years before, proscriptions were drawn up.151 Proscribed persons were entered on to a list and their money and property were forfeited, and for those who resisted the prospects were exile or death.152 The triumvirs haggled over names, where an enemy of the one might be a family member or friend of the other.153 When they completed their ‘barter of murder’, as Plutarch describes it, the names of 300 senators and 2,000 equestrians were on the list.154 On 24 November the triumvirs marched with a large contingent of troops into Rome and began enforcing the confiscations; but they sent ahead of them a small group who would visit the richest and most important men first. Among the first wave of victims was 64-year-old M. Tullius Cicero, placed on the list by Antonius as revenge for the sustained verbal attacks he had suffered in his Philippics.155 He was tracked down to his villa in Formiae (Formia) preparing to depart for Macedonia. On 7 December he was visited by a detachment of soldiers led by tribune Popilius and centurion Herennius.156 Cicero bowed to his captors, leaned his head out of the litter, and bared his neck with his own hands to the legionaries. Herennius botched the execution. It took him three saw cuts to finally decapitate Cicero.157 His hands – as much tools of the orator’s trade as his voice – were also hacked off. They were taken to Rome where Antonius ordered the severed head and hands to be placed above the bronze beaks of captured ships that decorated the Rostra from where the orator had often spoken.158

  As word of the proscription spread, Rome’s affluent and powerful panicked. To calm the situation, consul Pedius, who had received a copy of the list containing just seventeen names, issued an edict in earnest that no more would be added and published the names.159 Next day he was found dead. Foul play was not suspected, but his edict failed. The list was posted up in the Forum.160 The triumvirs were intent on carrying out their plan and the proscriptions proceeded, resulting in the liquidation of almost a third of the Senate.161 Butchered bodies lay un-buried in the streets and the heads of many were displayed on spikes on the Rostra.162 Innocents who were not on the list also fell victim to the spite of accusers who used the proscription as cover to settle old scores.163 Amidst this horrific slaughter one man showed humanity. Agrippa interceded to have a man removed from the list of the proscribed. A certain Marcus, being a deputy of Brutus, was captured at Philippi pretending to be a slave and had been purchased by a man named Barbula. Marcus’ true identity was revealed and Agrippa successfully negotiated to scratch his name from the list.164

  As winter gripped Italy, Rome was a grim place to be in. The mood in the city was chaotic, fearful and tragic. When Lepidus celebrated his triumph for his victory in Hispania, crowds turned out and cheered, but their broad smiles and hollers masked deep sadness and despair.165 The burned out ruins of houses owned by some of the proscribed were dotted around the city. Those still standing had been picked bare of their contents. Buyers for the assets had proved too few, some not wishing to take part in the immoral trade or fearing the properties would bring bad luck to their new owners, others unwilling to be seen in public with precious items.166 Consequently, the prices the Triumvirs had hoped to achieve at auction were not realized. When the proceeds were tallied up the three commissioners were still short of their financial goal by 20,000,000 drachmai. Undaunted, they then turned to the 1,400 richest women of the city to make up the difference.167 But they met with stout defiance. Only 400 women finally subjected themselves to the required assessments.168 Now desperate, the triumvirs decreed that any man – Roman or foreigner or freedman – with wealth of more than 100,000 drachmai was required to advance them loans at an interest rate of one fiftieth of the value of their property and to contribute one year’s income to the cost of the war.169

  On 1 January 42 BCE, with Antonius’ allies M. Lepidus and L. Munatius Plancus sworn in as consuls, the Senate passed resolutions in honour of Iulius Caesar.170 The Ides of March was declared a die nefastus – a day on which public business could not be conducted – and the building in which the Senate met was renamed the Curia Iulia.171 Anyone seeking sanctuary there in future could not be forcibly removed. Eventually it was barricaded off so it could not be entered. It was also declared that his wax effigy could not be displayed by living members of his family during funerals.172 The official process of transforming him into a divinity had begun.

  Lepidus remained in Rome, but his colleagues set off to wage their wars of vengeance.173 War would be fought on three fronts.174 Many of the families able to evade the proscriptions headed to northern Greece to join Brutus and Cassius or Africa to be with Cornificius, but others moved southern Italy to join Pompeius’ son Sextus.175 Caesar and Salvidienus departed for Sicily to campaign against Sex. Pompeius, who had taken the island by forcing the surrender of its governor Clodius Bithynicus.176 He had engaged Sextus at Scylae, but he quickly ran into trouble on account of the inexperience of his crews; his fleet was scuppered, and his opponent slipped away.177 Salvidienus retreated to Balarus to carry out repa
irs. Antonius despatched eight legions to Macedonia under the command of C. Norbanus Flaccus and Decidius Saxa. Norbanus took up a position in Thrace.

  The conspirators had also been making preparations of their own. M. Brutus assembled an army in Eprius and Macedonia with help of money from Trebonius in Asia.178 Adding to his numbers Brutus had secured the army of Illyricum from its unpopular commander Vatinius at Dyrrhacium.179 When M. Antonius’ brother landed at Apollonia with his expeditionary force, Brutus met him, won over his soldiers, adding them to his force, and took Caius prisoner.180 Separately Cassius secured twelve legions from Bithynia, Iudaea and Syria and a prized unit of mounted Parthian archers.181 The two commanders met at Smyrna (modern İzmir) and agreed to combine their army of nineteen legions, with Orodes of Parthia offering help, and prepared to leave for Macedonia.182 They too had extorted large sums from communities in Asia Minor, such as Tarsus and Laodikeia, who had been forced to pay ten years’ of taxes at one time, and if they could not find the cash, were compelled to melt statues and turn them into coin.183

  As the opposing forces jockeyed for position, Rome’s eastern allies and client kingdoms found themselves forced to pick sides. Queen Kleopatra VII of Egypt (plate 19), a close ally of the former Roman dictator, sent a fleet to Antonius and Caesar in Greece. It was forced to return home when blocked by Cassius.184 Ariobarzanes of Cappadocia who refused to pay, was summarily executed by Cassius’ nephew for plotting against the Res Publica.185 His treasury and supplies were confiscated. Cassius laid siege to Rhodes and, having defeated their fleet of thirty-three ships at Myndos and then taken the city, imposed a fine of 1,500 talents, saw fifty of its leading citizens executed, and confiscated all the portable silver and gold.186 Brutus meanwhile defeated the army of Lykia in a surprise attack, and in Xanthus the citizens committed mass suicide rather than surrender. Other cities reluctantly threw in their lots with the self-styled ‘liberators’.187

  By September Brutus had eight legions and Cassius nine. Many, however, were not at full strength.188 The combined force, representing some 80,000 men, advanced through Thrace. Additionally, Brutus brought cavalry, comprising 4,000 from Gaul and Lusitania, 3,000 from Thrace and Illyricum and 2,000 from Parthia and Thessaly; Cassius contributed 2,000 Spanish and Gallic regular cavalry and 4,000 mounted bowmen, Arabs, Medes, and Parthians. A large additional force of infantrymen and about 5,000 horse were provided by the allied kings and tetrarchs of Galatia in Asia. En route they outflanked Norbanus’ army of eight legions with the help of 3,000 cavalry under Reskupolis (Rhescupolis), prince of Thrace; they would have trapped them at Thasos had Antonius not arrived in time.189 Brutus and Cassius picked a site at Philippi on the high ground to establish their separate camps near marshes, connecting by them a rampart, and anchored their fleet at Neapolis.190

  Norbanus had established and fortified his position at Amphipolis, much to Antonius’ delight.191 Antonius dug a second camp audaciously in view of Cassius on the plain, having found no other elevated site, only then to discover that the plain was prone to flooding by the nearby Thasos River. He built entrenchments, raising numerous towers and on all sides with ditch, wall and palisade. Antonius ordered his men to dig a dyke through the marsh in order to isolate Cassius’ camp from the Via Egnatia by which the supplies reached him. Cassius’ men responded by building a wall to block their path.

  After reaching Dyrrhachium, Caesar was taken ill, finally reaching Amphipolis in late September.192 He erected his camp opposite Brutus’. Caesar recovered sufficiently to join Antonius, only to have to be carried about in a litter when his malady returned.193 A comment by Pliny the Elder infers Agrippa was there attending to

  [Caesar’s] illness at the battle of Philippi; his flight, and his having to remain three days concealed in a marsh, though suffering from sickness, and, according to the account of Agrippa and Maecenas, labouring under a dropsy.194

  The triumvirs’ combined force of nineteen legions matched their opponents’, though Antonius and Caesar had more cavalry.195 With them Antonius tried to provoke battle, but Brutus and Cassius refused to engage; having the greater supplies they hoped to prolong the standoff and starve their opponent into submission.196 With limited supplies and no means to replenish them, Antonius knew he could not wait.197 He formulated a plan of action. Each day he arrayed his troops on the plain in battle formation, while part of his force hidden from view by reeds erected a causeway.198 After ten days the work was complete. His subterfuge had been discovered, however. Cassius had noticed the constructions and had his men build a transverse wall of their own across the marsh from his camp to the sea, intercepting Antonius’ causeway so that those inside could not escape to him, nor could he render them assistance. Incensed by Cassius’ tactical counter measures, on 3 October Antonius’ troops burst out, scaled the wall with ladders and tools and broke into Cassius’ camp, which was defended by only a few men, and began tearing down the rampart and filling in the ditches.199 Watching in disbelief from afar, acting without orders, Brutus’ men responded and charged at the triumvirs’ flank; for a while they had the upper hand and wrought havoc in Caesar’s camp, the commander himself having left only a while before.200 Cassius had taken the bulk of his soldiers south to work on the causeway, and they were now exposed in the open. In the dust which swirled over the battlefield neither side could not see their allies’ progress and they began to think the worst.201 Both sides hacked at each other, struggling to maintain a firm foothold on the islands of dry ground to prevent themselves falling into the marsh.202 Cassius’ side faltered under pressure from the enemy’s right wing, and his cavalry fled in the direction of the sea; he did not relay a call for assistance from Brutus thinking him already dead.203 Instead he scrambled to higher ground to get a better view. From there he spotted a unit of cavalry riding towards him. They were Brutus’ coming to his aid; but Cassius believed them to be the enemy.204 In despair and resignation, believing all was lost, Cassius committed suicide.205 Brutus learned of his friend’s end, but nevertheless rallied the troops and promised them rewards, for in his mind the war was not lost.206 By the end of the battle, Cassius and Brutus suffered 8,000 men dead, but Caesar had sustained twice as many casualties.207 The bloodied and bruised sides parted in what was taken to be a draw and retired to their camps.

  Antonius’ hoped for relief supplies failed to arrive when their ships came under attack in the Straits of Otranto from a fleet commanded by Murcus and Domitius Ahenobarbus and were forced to retreat.208 Rather than face starvation, Antonius and Caesar had to force Brutus to engage them in a last decisive action, in the knowledge that, with supplies aplenty and the better position, Brutus could bide his time.209 Brutus was blithely ignorant of his opponents’ plight until twenty days after the first battle. Foolishly he gave in to his officers’ demands for a fight. On the other side of the field, the two triumvirs roused their men.210

  On 23 October, at approximately 3.00pm, the battle commenced.211 Caesar lead his men to press against Brutus’, pushing them back until their line broke, and seized their enemy’s camp. Antonius’ men advanced also, driving down on the fugitives, dispatching cavalry along the Via Egnatia to block the path of any escapees.212 There were defections. As his friend Lucilius attempted to draw Antonius off, Brutus managed to break out with what remained of four legions and scrambled into the surrounding hills.213 But the battle was lost, and the war with it. Rather than be taken prisoner, next morning, assisted by his friend Strato Messala, Brutus took his own life.214 In a mark of respect, Antonius and Caesar gave their opponent an honourable funeral, and they were kind to Strato.215

  Among the survivors who surrendered was Q. Horatius Flaccus (the poet Horace) who had served as a military tribune at the insistence of M. Brutus.216 Learning of Brutus’ demise, the other conspirators took their own lives.217 The triumvirs declared an amnesty and the surviving soldiers transferred their allegiance to them.218 Some 14,000 of the defeated soldiers switched to Antonius and Caesar. There was bad
news among the good. By a remarkable coincidence, on 23 October Caesar’s reinforcements – including the Legio Martia, a Praetorian Cohort of 2,000 men, 4 alae of cavalry and other specialist troops – aboard transports with an escort of triremes were intercepted, rammed and set alight in the Adriatic Sea by Domitius Ahenobarbus and Murcus with 130 warships.219 Rather than face capture or being burned alive, the men of the Martia committed suicide; others drowned, while the survivors on the remaining seventeen ships surrendered to Murcus.220

  The two triumvirs offered a great sacrifice for their victory and quickly manoeuvred to marginalize their absent third partner.221 Lepidus, suspected of having surreptitious links with Sex. Pompeius, was stripped of his army and provinces – he would only regain them if the accusations were proved to be false. Antonius and Caesar renegotiated the split of territories. Antonius acquired all the Gallic provinces, while Caesar assumed responsibility for the Hispanic provinces, Numidia, Sardinia and Sicily.222 Gallia Cisalpina joined Italy as a neutral or ‘common’ territory under the nominal control of Caesar. Antonius headed for Asia, while Caesar returned to the homeland, accompanied by Agrippa.223

  With the civil war over, the military overhead had become a heavy financial and managerial burden. The triumvirs agreed to reduce the forty-three legions to thirty-two: seventeen were assigned to Antonius and fifteen to Caesar.224 The demobbed troops, however, who had loyally served the Caesarians expected to receive their rewards for services rendered. It fell to Caesar’s to resettle the men of the eleven legions plus the qualifying veterans of the remaining units. Fully recovered from the setback at Scylae, Salvidienus was dispatched with six legions to the Iberian Peninsula to retake the Hispanic provinces from Sex. Pompeius.225 Before he left the region, Caesar established a new city for retired veterans of the legions and men of his Praetorian Cohorts close to the battle site and named it Colonia Iulia Victrix Philippi.226