Agrippa - Military Commander and Friend of Augustus

MARCVS VIPSANIVS AGRIPPA was born about 63 BC to obscure parents in Rome.  He became a friend of Octavian (Augustus - q.v.) early in his life, and they were with Caesar (who was Octavian's grand-uncle) in Spain in 45 BC, from whence they were sent to Apollonia in Epirus (Pojani, Albania) for tutoring by the Greek rhetorician Apollodorus of Pergamum.  While there they also trained with the nearby legions which Caesar had assembled there for a proposed campaign against the Parthians, which was prevented by Caesar's assassination in Rome on the Ides of March (March 15) in 44 BC.  Agrippa was among the friends who urged Octavian to proceed to Rome upon hearing of Caesar's death.

Octavian arrived in Rome in late April after hearing that he had been designated as Caesar's son and main heir.  Mark Antony refused to turn over Caesar's funds or explain why the assassins went unpunished, thus ensuring Octavian's undying enmity.  Octavian borrowed money to raise a legion, with the assistance of Agrippa.  The Senate declared Antony a public enemy and sent an army and Octavian's legion against him, and in April of 43 BC the combined forces forced Antony to retreat.  Unfortunately the Senate refused to reward Octavian or his troops, and he marched on Rome.  Angry with the Senate, he had Antony's condemnation revoked.  Finally in November of 43 BC he met at Bononia (Bologna, Italy) with Antony and Lepidus (Caesar's close colleague and consul with him in 46 BC) and there the Second Triumvirate was formed on November 27, 43 BC.

After the Triumvirs defeated Cassius and Brutus at Philippi in 42 BC, they split the Roman world among themselves.  Octavian soon found that Sextus Pompey from his base in Sicily was cutting off African food supplies to Rome.  Antony's wife Fulvia and Antony's youngest brother, Lucius Antonius (consul in 41 BC), added to Octavian's trouble by constantly stirring resentment, and Octavian finally attacked them at Perusia (Perugia, Italy).  Agrippa played a leading role in the siege.  The town surrendered, and although Octavian pardoned Antony's relatives, he plundered and burned the town, as well as slaughtering the entire town council, gaining a reputation for ferocity.  He tried to solve his problem with Pompey in 40 BC by marrying Scribonia, a relative of Pompey.  She bore Octavian's only child, a daughter named Julia  (Agrippa's future wife), in 39 BC.  Pompey ignored the marriage and allied with Antony, who was returning to Italy to recruit troops.  Octavian blocked him and war was only averted when the veteran legions refused to fight each other, and a peace conference at Brundisium (Brindisi, Italy) was arranged in October of 40 BC.

In 38 BC Octavian sent Agrippa to Gaul where he suppressed a rebellion in Aquitania.  Octavian himself attacked Pompey, gaining Sardinia but being decisively defeated in an attempt to take Sicily.  Agrippa returned to Rome in 37 BC and served as consul for the first time.  That year Mark Antony arranged for Agrippa to marry the fourteen-year-old Caecilia Attica, who became the mother of Vipsania Agrippina (not Agrippinna Sr.), who became the first wife of Tiberius.  Octavian commanded Agrippa to construct a fleet for another attempt against Pompey, and summoned Antony from the east.  Agrippa not only built the fleet, but by digging two canals he joined two large inland lakes to the sea, thus giving himself a perfect sheltered training area.  Antony and Octavian met at Tarentum (Taranto, Italy) in 37 BC to renew the Second Triumvirate and discuss Pompey.

Accordingly in 36 BC Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian launched a coordinated assault on Pompey's Sicilian stronghold.  Agrippa began with a small but important victory over Pompey's admiral Demochares near Mylae (Milazzo, Sicily), because Pompey came to help Demochares, and that allowed Octavian and Lepidus to land and quickly overrun the island.  Agrippa scored a complete victory on September 3 over Pompey's fleet near Naulochus in Sicily, a battle from which only seventeen of Pompey's ships escaped.  Pompey fled but was later captured and executed.

Octavian and Agrippa campaigned from 35 BC until 33 BC in Illyricum and Dalmatia, and succeeded in making the northern reaches of Italy safer from barbarian incursions than ever before.  Octavian then began a campaign to beautify and aggrandize the city of Rome, building numerous public buildings and works such as aquaducts.  Much of that work was entrusted to his friend Agrippa, who served as aedile in 33 BC (even though he had served as consul in 37 BC).

Octavian then began a propaganda war against Antony, characterizing him as immoral (for his affair with Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt) and given over to foreign ways.  The 'cold war' intensified throughout 33 BC when Octavian served as consul for the second time, and Antony finally divorced Octavian's sister Octavia in 32 BC.  Octavian declared war in late 32 BC.

In early 31 BC Octavian and Agrippa sailed for the east, where Antony had been assembling troops at Ephesus (Selcuk, Turkey).  In late 32 BC or early 31 BC Antony moved to Actium (Akra Nikolaos, Greece) where the inevitable clash occurred in a sea battle on September 2, 31 BC.  Agrippa once more was Octavian's victorious admiral, scoring a complete victory, but Antony and Cleopatra escaped back to Alexandria, with about a fourth of their ships.  When Octavian finally entered Alexandria on August 3, 30 BC, Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide and Octavian was unchallenged as the ruler of the Roman world, in command of sixty legions.  Agrippa meanwhile had returned to Rome after Actium helped govern until Octavian's return to Rome in 29 BC.

In 28 BC Octavian was co-consul with Agrippa, Agrippa's second consulship, and together they had a census conducted and pruned the membership of the Senate from 1,000 to 800 men.  In Agrippa's second consulship, he married Augustus' niece Marcella.  The fate of his first wife Caecilia Attica is unknown, although it is known that her tutor was dismissed on suspicion of improper relations with her.  Marcella and Agrippa had a daughter named Vipsania, who married P. Quinctilius Varus, who gained everlasting infamy when he and three legions were massacred in Germany in 9 AD.

27 BC saw another joint consulship of Octavian and Agrippa (Agrippa's third and last), and a most startling re-organization of the government.  Octavian had formerly essentially ruled simply as the winner of the civil wars, but on January 13, 27 BC he appeared before the Senate and offered to surrender his powers to the Senate and the Roman people.  The Senate decided that he should accept proconsular power for ten years over the provinces which had the most precarious military situations.  The Senate assumed nominal control over the rest, although Octavian through his 'auctoritas' (influence and moral authority) still maintained some control.  On January 16 the grateful Senate met and voted Octavian many honors, including the title of Augustus.  Agrippa's third consulship also saw the beginning of the construction of the Pantheon in Rome, a temple dedicated to all of the gods and one of the most famous buildings of antiquity still standing.  It's massive dedicatory inscription still ascribes it to his third consulship, even though it was rebuilt during the reign of Hadrian (q.v.).

Augustus' health was in such a bad state after a Spanish campaign that in 23 BC he gave his signet ring to Agrippa, establishing a successor since his obvious successor, his son-in-law Marcellus, was still too inexperienced.  Due to his continued ill health, Augustus had the Senate grant Agrippa proconsular powers, and dispatched him to the east to deal with the Parthians.  Augustus did not stand for election as consul in 22 BC, and serious disturbances followed when the food supply began to wane.  Augustus stepped in to ensure the food supply, and afterward went to Sicily, Greece, Samos, and Asia, not arriving back at Rome until 19 BC.  In that time there had been disturbances over the consular elections, and that was the primary reason Agrippa was recalled from the east in 21, although the timing fit well with Augustus' desire to make him his successor through marriage with Julia.  When Augustus' son-in-law Marcellus died in late 23 BC at the age of twenty, he desired to make Agrippa his permanent candidate for successor, and had him divorce his second wife Marcella, and marry Augustus' only child Julia (the widow of Marcellus) in 21 BC.  They had three sons, Gaius Julius Caesar (born 20 BC), Lucius Julius Caesar (born 17 BC),  and Agrippa Postumus, was born after Agrippa's death in 12 BC.  They had two daughters, Julia (born about 19 BC) and Vipsania Agrippina (born about 14 BC - see AGRIPPINA SR.).  Vipsania Agrippina married Germanicus (q.v.) and became the mother of Caligula (q.v.), and thus Agrippa was to become the grandfather of an Augustus (though Caligula did not come to power until nearly fifty years after Agrippa's death).

In 20 BC Agrippa was sent to quell disturbances in Gaul, and in 19 BC he finally put an end to the disturbances in Spain, which had ruined Augustus' health nearly five years before.

In 18 BC Augustus had his proconsular power renewed for five years and arranged for Agrippa to receive the tribunician power and to have his proconsular power renewed for another five years.  Although legally Agrippa thus became a virtual co-ruler with Augustus, in fact he was clearly in the second position due to the "auctoritas" of Augustus.  The Senate membership was further reduced in 18 BC from 800 to 600 men.

Agrippa's health had rapidly failed after a rigorous winter (13 BC/12 BC) campaign in Pannonia, and he died in late March of 12 BC, upsetting Augustus' plan for the succession.  Agrippa showed complete loyalty to Augustus during his life, and bequeathed most of his property to him upon his death, although he also left bequests to the Roman people.  After a state funeral he was buried in the Mausoleum of Augustus.