Marcus Agrippa, captured in a single bust, right, helped shape the Roman Empire (Image: Getty)
Roman history is filled with famous men who did great deeds. But one stands out – Marcus Agrippa. He is important because, without him, Augustus would almost certainly not have been able to rule as Ancient Rome’s first emperor, and the empire might not have endured in the West for the next 500 years.
As Robert Harris tells it in his new novel Agrippa, Marcus Agrippa’s life story is one of a man beating the odds. It is a fair characterisation. History does not record much about his early years, only that they were hard. Marcus was born around 63BC, somewhere in Italy, to plebeian parents of the obscure Vipsania clan. His nickname, Agrippa (a contraction of the Latin for ‘difficult birth’), records that he was delivered feet first. A breech delivery was regarded as an unlucky start to life – so jinxed that it could blight a man’s entire life. It seems to have left him lame or at least caused pain in his legs. Yet Marcus bore his nickname proudly.
What changed his luck was his friendship with Caius Octavius, the great nephew of Julius Caesar. Records of the circumstances of their first meeting are lost, perhaps intentionally. But after going through the Roman equivalent of secondary school together, they joined Caesar in Spain on a military campaign, then prepared for another against Parthia. When Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March, 44BC, Octavius inherited his iconic name and immense wealth. Agrippa was suddenly best friends with a seriously important man.
Lindsay Powell is biographer of Marcus Agrippa (Image: Courtesy Lindsay Powell)
The following year, with help from Julius Caesar’s deputy, Marcus Antonius, the two friends hunted down and killed the assassins. Over the next decade, Agrippa proved his ability to defeat his friend’s opponents, both on land and at sea. At the Battle of Actium in 31BC, fought off the coast of western Greece, Agrippa destroyed the fleet of Marcus Antonius, now an enemy, and his backer Queen Cleopatra.
Now unopposed, in 27BC, Octavius reached a power sharing agreement with the Senate over how the Roman empire should be run. Recognised as princeps, ‘First Man’, and addressed with the title Augustus, ‘Revered One’, this concordat gave him command of the Roman army and several territories. Augustus now needed someone he could trust to help him carry out his new responsibilities. He picked Agrippa.
Without his right-hand man, Augustus would likely neither have succeeded in his venture nor held on to power. Both men knew it. By 13BC, Agrippa had held many offices of state one or more times and had been granted all the same legal powers as Augustus. He lacked only his friend’s influence and prestige, which came from having inherited the name and legacy directly from Julius Caesar. Similar in age, but different in style, Agrippa matched his friend in ambition and vision. He brought capabilities to the partnership that Augustus himself lacked in military and civil engineering affairs.
Author Robert Harris at home in Berkshire with bust of Julius Caesar (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster / Express)
He quashed rebellions in Aquitania (now western France) and Illyricum (Albania, Croatia and Slovenia), ousted a usurper in Crimea, drove German invaders out of Gaul (France), and completed the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. In Rome, he fixed broken drains, built aqueducts and baths, created a public lake and park, and constructed the Pantheon. He worked selflessly, travelling extensively around the empire for years at a time, and often at great personal risk.
In his family life he was asked to make compromises. He married three times. Augustus required him to divorce his first wife and chose his next two. His third wife was Augustus’s own daughter, Julia. In 17BC, Augustus adopted the two sons of that marriage, Caius and Lucius, in a symbolic sale; now each bearing the family name of Caesar, they were positioned to succeed Augustus.
Through his lifelong collaboration with Augustus, Agrippa achieved great things which he could not have done by himself. Grasping the opportunities, while respecting the guardrails of this special relationship, were Agrippa’s secrets to success. There were several occasions when he could have seized power for himself, but he was never tempted.
Portraits on coins and statue busts give us a good idea of his facial features: heavy eyebrows, tousled hair, deep furrows on his forehead, and a thick neck. His expression is usually serious, perhaps from carrying the burdens of work or the constant pain in his legs. Yet, nothing is known of his height, or the colour of his hair or eyes.
Lindsay’s biography of Agrippa is out now (Image: Pen & Sword Books)
Marcus Agrippa’s luck ran out in 12BC. He died aged 50 or 51. Augustus and the Roman people mourned. After a state funeral, his ashes were placed in the mausoleum Augustus had built for himself and his close family in Rome.
His bloodline continued through his children. His daughter, Agrippina the Elder, raised the infamous emperor Caligula, while his granddaughter, Agrippina the Younger, spawned the notorious emperor Nero. And that is another story entirely…
Lindsay Powell is a historian and writer, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He is the author of Marcus Agrippa: Right Hand Man of Caesar Augustus (Pen and Sword Books, 2023), which Robert Harris has acknowledged using in researching his new novel Agrippa
