Marcus Agrippa: Right-hand Man of Caesar Augustus (42 page)

On the night of 31 May 17 BCE, beneath a full moon, Augustus and members of the
Quindecimviri
gathered at a spot on the
Campus
beside the river called Tarentum. There Augustus sacrificed three lambs by slitting their throats and, having sprinkled the three altars, erected for the purpose, with blood, he offered up the victims whole to the Moerae. To imbue the games with yet more solemnity and visual impact they placed a great number of lights around the venue and made a large fire, beside which the priests sang a new hymn. A theatrical performance (
ludi scaenici
) was staged, perhaps with Agrippa’s own freedman M. Vispanius Narcissus acting as
rogator ab scaena
, a clerk in charge of some aspect of theatre management (
fig. 9
).
¹⁷
Some 110 matrons laid on a sacred banquet (
sellisternia
) in honour of goddesses Iuno and Diana.
¹⁸
Those performing the ceremonies were rewarded with the first fruits of the wheat, barley and beans.

Figure 9. Narcissus, a former slave freed by Agrippa, worked as a member of production staff (
rogator ad scaena
) at an unknown theatre in Rome.

The following day, 1 June, Agrippa presided over the ceremony on the Capitolinus where the usual sacrifices of two white bulls were offered to Iupiter Optimus Maximus. Then going from there to the appointed place, the crowd celebrated games in honour of Apollo and Diana, and a sacred banquet was held.
¹⁹
As the sun set, Augustus returned to lead the night-time ceremonies on the
Campus Martius
with the offering of twenty-seven sacred cakes to the Ilythiae. On 2 June, the daytime proceedings commenced again under Agrippa’s supervision on the Capitolinus Hill where two cows were sacrificed to Iuno Regina.
²⁰
Augustus led the night-time ceremony on the
Campus
with the sacrifice to the Magna Mater of a pregnant sow.
²¹
On the final day, the leading ladies of the state entered the precinct of the Capitolinus with due reverence as required by the solemn occasion and at a time determined by the Sybilline oracle. In the Temple of Apollo at the third hour, twenty-seven boys and twenty-seven girls, whose eligibility required their parents to be living, joined together as a choir to sing the ‘Century Hymn’ (
Carmen Saeculare
) especially composed for the occasion by the 48-year-old Horace. It marked the climax of the festival. In words set to music, Augustus’ now favourite poet appealled to the gods to preserve the Roman Empire.
²²
To Phoebus he entreats,

The festival concluded. The crowd went home buoyed by the celebrations they had witnessed – and would never see again. The Century Games – only the fifth in the nation’s history – proved a resounding success. On account of Horace’s
Ode
it is the only one still remembered.

Agrippa continued the celebrations by sponsoring ever-popular chariot races on 12 June.
²⁴
There is evidence that he owned, or at least paid for the upkeep of, a team of chariot racers. Among the drivers of the sleek, stripped down four-horse racing vehicles (
quadrigae
) designed for speed, were former slaves who he freed – Calamus, Dareus, Fautus and Migio (or Mugio) – each bearing the distinctive
praenomen
and
nomen gentile
of their former master.
²⁵
This was another of the many ways Agrippa added to his fortune and shared it with his fellow citizens.

The optimistic mood continued and filled Agrippa’s household too. Between 14 June and 15 July his wife Iulia gave birth to a second son. After the required number of days, Agrippa formally accepted the boy as his own son and named him Lucius. Iulia had now produced two sons for Agrippa – and two grandsons for Augustus. Not content with a degree’s separation, Augustus proposed an idea to his son-in-law. Exactly when it occurred to Augustus is not recorded, but Agrippa seems to have agreed without protest. Within weeks of the newborn child’s birthday, a
praetor
was called to witness a ceremony in which Augustus symbolically bought Caius and Lucius, a procedure made legal by touching a pair of scales with a copper
as
(
per aes et libram
) three times.
²⁶
The two boys were now the adopted sons and successors to the
princeps
. In the absence of his own male heirs, Agrippa’s sons provided an elegant solution to a problem that had preoccupied his friend for years. The adoption would also remove any rivalry that could develop between the boys and Agrippa as he was their natural father.
²⁷
Dio mentions that Augustus proceeded with the adoption before the boys had entered manhood to reduce the number of plots schemed against him.
²⁸
For Agrippa it was yet another clear demonstration of his friendship.

Agrippa’s personal popularity among the ordinary people remained high, but many patricians continued to look at the
novus homo
, despite his incalculable service to the commonwealth, with undisguised supercilious disdain. The meanspiritedness of some is revealed in an account of a court case heard that year:

He then proceeded to mock Agrippa’s preference for omitting his
nomen gentile
.
³⁰

The Century Games and the adoption of the two boys had been intended to mark the beginning of a new era of peace – the
Pax Augusta
– stretching far into the future, yet events would quickly prove how loose was the leaders’ control of Rome’s destiny in the short term. Hardly had the summer drawn to a close when a messenger rode at speed to Rome and delivered disturbing news from the
legatus Augusti pro praetore
of the Three Gallic Provinces. M. Lollius, who had succeeded Agrippa as governor of the region, wrote to inform Augustus that bandits from an alliance of Germanic tribes had murdered Roman army officers in Germania, then crossed the Rhine and raided deep into Roman Belgica.
³¹

Cavalry had raced to intercept the invaders, but in the chase they had found themselves in the middle of an ambush. While pursuing the Romans the German marauders ran straight into the path of Lollius’ own legion, V
Alaudae
(‘the Larks’). In the ensuing battle, which likely took place somewhere in Flanders or Wallonia, the legion lost its prized
aquila
standard.
³²
It was a military and public relations disaster, which quickly gained the name
clades Lolliana
after its begetter. Lollius had earned a reputation as a man of avarice rather than one of honest hard work, and for corruption despite his strenuous efforts to conceal it.
³³
He was the sort of man Agrippa despised, yet his closest friend found him useful. Nevertheless as a handpicked deputy, the news of Lollius’ failure in his basic duty of keeping his province secure was deeply embarrassing to Augustus.
³⁴
He fully accepted responsibility and began to make arrangements to leave Rome and take command of the situation in person.
³⁵
By the time he arrived in the province in 16 BCE, Lollius had already regained control and, having learned that Augustus was on his way, the Germans had offered hostages to show they would keep to the negotiated peace terms and retreated across the river.
³⁶
With Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, Gallic Provinces, Illyricum and Parthia at peace with Rome, Augustus had decided that a new, more aggressive strategy for Rome’s last frontier was called for. Almost certainly he consulted Agrippa on the matter – after all he had first-hand knowledge of the zone of conflict and the ways of the Germanic nations. It was decided that Lollius would be relieved of his duty and, in his place, Augustus appointed his stepson Ti. Claudius Nero.
³⁷
At the same time, his youngest stepson, Nero Claudius Drusus was commissioned to lead a campaign against the Raeti who lived in the foothills of the Alps and whose banditry continually disrupted life of the Roman communities in the north of Italy.
³⁸

Even before Augustus departed Rome, Agrippa, his wife, children, handpicked household slaves and his lictors were already
en route
for the East.
³⁹
Now holding
imperium
over all governors of the provinces to the east of the Ionian Sea, Agrippa’s new mission was administrative and diplomatic, but he was always ready to deal with any military eventualities as they might crop up. The route he took on his way to Syria is not recorded, but he likely departed from Brundisium and sailed across the Adriatic Sea to Dyrrhachium and then followed the coast down the western Balkans (
map 16
). Ships of the time tended to hug the coast line rather than strike out across the open sea, usually stopping at ports before nightfall. One of these may have been
Colonia Augusta Buthrotum
in Epirus.
⁴⁰
The city had enjoyed a long and close relationship with Atticus, Agrippa’s father-in-law. The connection with Agrippa was fostered by the city fathers who erected two statues in his honour.

A short crossing over the Ionian Sea took the travellers to the island of Kerkyra.
⁴¹
For Agrippa memories of his time fifteen years before as commander in charge of a fleet raiding the military installations of renegade M. Antonius would have come flooding back. One likely stopover in Epirus was Nikopolis, the ‘victory city’ founded by his friend in the year of their battle at Actium. It had already grown into a substantial city, drawing in tourists from far and wide. Strabo’s describes it in his
Geography
, written shortly before Agrippa’s oriental trip:

Map 16. Agrippa’s Travels, 18–12 BCE.

The main attraction of the city was the Actian Monument. Strabo describes its location: