Marcus Agrippa: Right-hand Man of Caesar Augustus (7 page)

In 61 BCE, on his forty-fifth birthday, Pompeius re-entered Rome in triumph.
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It was a spectacular ticker-tape style parade in which war spoils were displayed on decorated carts and chained captives following behind the commander as he rode in his chariot with his victorious troops through the streets and up to the Temple of Iupiter on the Capitolinus Hill to offer thanks. He had earned it. In the six years he had been on campaign he had not only decisively crushed the pirates, but he had annexed four new provinces – Bithynia et Pontus, Syria, Cilicia and Crete – and made treaties with client-kings (notably the Hashmonean dynasty), which gave Rome indirect control of regions without the administrative burden and military expense. Through his actions, he had extended Rome’s political influence as far as the Black Sea and the Caucasus,
established thirty-nine new cities and brought back such immense wealth in coin and plate it exceeded the annual revenues of the Roman state from taxation.
⁸⁸

Caesar, meantime, was away serving a term as
praetor
in Hispania Citerior, in part paid for by Crassus.
⁸⁹
There he waged war against the Gallaeci and the Lusitani in the northwest of the peninsula and, after conquering them, he established a civilian administration to govern the territory.
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In late 60 BCE he returned to Rome where he mediated between Crassus and Pompeius. Out of the talks emerged a political coalition of the three men (
triumviri
), which has since become known as the First Triumvirate.
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To bind them together, Caesar offered his daughter Iulia to Pompeius in marriage.
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The following year Caesar was rewarded with election as consul.
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He immediately began work on legislation to redistribute land to Rome’s poor, despite strong opposition from Cato and Lucullus.
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At the same time Pompeius received the land grants he needed to honourably discharge his veteran troops who had reached the end of their service in the East; but his best years were now behind him.
⁹⁵

With the
Bona Dea
scandal fading in the popular memory, Clodius provocatively resigned his patrician status and enrolled as a plebeian. With the approval of Pompeius, he was elected tribune in 59.
⁹⁶
He immediately presented legislation making it a capital offence for a Roman to execute another without trial or for anyone to provide shelter or sustenance to one.
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It was aimed squarely at Cicero, who went hurriedly into exile in northern Greece.
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All his properties in Italy were confiscated and his home on the Palatinus in Rome was razed.
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Clodius then drove through a series of populist plebiscites passed by the Plebeian Council, which prevented magistrates from suspending meetings of the Tribal Assembly if the auspices were deemed unfavourable; set strict new rules by which the censors worked; allowed Romans to meet freely in political clubs, that had been banned in 80 BCE, probably by Sulla; extended voting rights; and provided for distribution of public grain at no charge to the city’s poor.
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In 58 BCE Caesar embarked on his epic campaign to assimilate the tribal nations of Gaul into the Roman Empire, famously described in his ‘Briefing on the Gallic War’.
¹⁰¹
Beginning with the Helvetii, he proceeded to defeat tribe after tribe, and reports of his valour and derring-do filtered back to Rome.
¹⁰²
Pompeius assumed governorship of Hispania Ulterior, but decided to remain in Rome where, as
curator annonae
, he supervised distribution of the grain dole. He then absorbed himself in life with his new wife and in his designs for a new entertainment complex with a theatre – Rome’s first permanent building of its type for plays and musicals – on the Campus Martius, which would serve as a monument to his achievements and paid for (
ex manubiis
) by the spoils of his wars.
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The Triumvirate, however, was coming apart. Needing more time to continue his campaign against the Gallic nations, in 56 Caesar sought help and met first with Crassus, then Pompeius. He secured agreement for his own
imperium proconsulare
to be extended for a further five years.
¹⁰⁴
In reciprocation, Crassus would take command of Syria – from where he planned to launch a war against Parthia – and Pompeius would retain Hispania Ulterior. Over the ensuing years their fortunes differed widely. The Theatre of Pompeius was opened in 55, but the following
year Iulia died in childbirth, along with the baby, leaving Pompeius a widower.
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Crassus’ luck ran out too. In 53 he led his army to utter defeat at Carrhae with the survivors and all the legionary standards (
signa
) captured.
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Caesar continued his succession of victories in Gallia Comata and Belgica, crossing the Rhine River into Germania Magna in 55, the English Channel over to Britain the same year, and again in 54.
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Caesar was now being talked of as Rome’s greatest living military commander, which did not please Pompeius.

Clodius pressed on with his populist agenda. Since his tribunate, the streets of Rome had run with the blood of its own citizens who fought over the matter of recalling Cicero.
¹⁰⁸
The
optimates
now had a champion in T. Annius Milo Papianus. Milo had played a prominent role in having Cicero’s sentence of exile rescinded in 57 despite opposition from Clodius who had used armed gangs (
factiones
) of slaves and gladiators to intimidate voters.
¹⁰⁹
Milo had them arrested. Standing for consul in 53, he had assembled his own armed gang. Passing by pure chance on the
Via Appia
, the gangs of Clodius and Milo clashed. Clodius was killed in the violent fracas.
¹¹⁰
His battered body was carried to the
Forum Romanum
and laid on a pyre inside the
Curia Hostilia
. When set alight, the building was engulfed in flames and burned down. Until it could be rebuilt, the Senate would have to meet in an alcove of the Theatre of Pompeius.

What the Conscript Fathers most feared was a civil war out of which one man would seize supreme power (
dominatio
) and shut down the Roman Commonwealth and with it the
libertas
of every Roman. With defeated Crassus dead, and a victorious Caesar having a massive army behind him in Gaul, there was only one man with the means and prestige able to stand up to him – Pompeius Magnus who had his army in Hispania and Africa. The problem was, as Cicero put it, ‘each wants to be king’.
¹¹¹
Cato submitted a resolution to the vote which terminated Caesar’s proconsular powers.
¹¹²
Caesar tried to negotiate: he would surrender his army if Pompeius did the same.
¹¹³
When the Senate requested of Caesar to release
Legiones
I and XV so they could be transferred to the East he complied. He had no reason not to. After Carrhae Rome’s eastern border now lay exposed and Caesar was keen to do his patriotic duty. However, Caesar later learned that the two legions he had released from his service had not gone to Syria, but instead had remained in Italy. He interpreted the slight to mean the Senate mistrusted him. If Caesar surrendered his command he would no longer have immunity from a prosecution and the inevitable exile. If he did not obey the Senate’s order, however, he would be declared enemy of the state and Pompeius could be made sole consul in charge of the army, a concession even Cato appeared willing to make.
¹¹⁴

The following year, while sojourning in Ravenna, Caesar received a report hand delivered by the tribunes sympathetic to him in Rome. On 7 January 49 BCE the Senate had demanded under a decree of
senatus consultum ultimum
that he relinquish command of all ten of his legions, with the instruction ‘the consuls, the praetors, the tribunes, and all the proconsuls who are near the city shall take measures that the state incur no harm’.
¹¹⁵
Facing a prosecution he likely could not win, he chose to take the matter into his own hands and sought
justice on his own terms. On the evening of 10 or 11 January the men of
Legio
XIII and 300 cavalry advanced towards Ariminium (modern Rimini).
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With them, driving a hired cart, Plutarch reports, was Iulius Caesar.
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Soon they came to the banks of the Rubico – the accepted border of demilitarized home-land.
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Crossing the Rubicon River would be an act of treason; but true to his character Caesar, now 50 years of age, took a calculated gamble. The battle hardened army was his protection. ‘Take we the course which the signs of the gods and the false dealing of our foes points out’, he said, quoting the playwright Menander’s line, ‘the die are cast’.
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Then he waded into the river. His men followed. The Roman Commonwealth was suddenly plunged into civil war.

The Senate hoped the people of Italy would rally to the defence of the
Res Publica
. It had gravely miscalculated. Hearing of the seizure of Ariminium by Caesar, the civic leaders of the other cities –
coloniae
and
municipiae
– were skeptical about the Senate in Rome coming to their rescue, and stayed home behind their securely shut doors.
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Caesar kept two cohorts of
Legio
XIII with him at Ariminium, despatched five cohorts under the command of his deputy, M. Antonius, to Arretium (modern Arezzo), and dispersed the rest to local towns.
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He knew he could count on his men.
Legiones
I and XV were already stationed in the peninsula, and bolstering his numbers of troops he would soon be joined by V
Alaudae
, VIII and XII from Gallia Comata. He also raised an all-new unit,
Legio
XVI, which he immediately despatched to Africa.

Panic now gripped the Conscript Fathers, huddled together in Rome.
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Pompeius, their champion, was willing to fight for their cause, having superiority in number of legions, but they were still deployed in Hispania and Africa. He needed time to rally his army for battle at a time and in a place of his choosing. Rather than stand and fight at that moment and risk losing, Pompeius argued they should evacuate the city and regroup in Greece. On 17 March the Senate relented and fled.
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In that tumultuous spring of 49 BCE, at the age of 15, Agrippa formally became a man. On the morning of the ceremony, he took off the amulet (
bulla
) he had worn as a boy for the last time and donned his new all-white gown (
toga pura
), which was only worn by men who were Roman citizens.
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Then he walked in a procession of his family and friends through the
Forum Romanum
(
deductio in forum
) to the public records office where his name was entered into the rolls of Roman citizens. The celebration over, he would return to school to continue his education. At an unknown moment during this period and under unrecorded circumstances, Agrippa was introduced to a boy just months younger than himself.
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His name was C. Octavius Thurinus. Smart and intellectually gifted, Octavius was equestrian and born in Velitrae, not Rome, and his father was not particularly distinguished either.
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His mother, Atia, however, was Iulius Caesar’s niece, and this connection would prove highly significant.
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The two young men quickly found common ground and became firm friends, forming a bond which would
endure through four decades of personal hardships and public threats, but also life-changing opportunities and unimaginable successes.

At this age Agrippa would have begun to study the art of public speaking. Octavius’ teacher was the highly-respected but aged
rhetor
Apollodorus of Pergamum.
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Indeed, the two boys may have met while studying rhetoric. Agrippa certainly had a talent for public speaking in later life. One of his speeches from adulthood was known to Pliny the Elder who described it as an
oratio magnifica
, ‘a magnificent oration’, attesting to his accomplished skill.
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Under the guidance of this teacher of oratory from Asia Minor, Agrippa and his friend practised different styles and techniques until they had mastered them. The ability to frame arguments, by informing, persuading and motivating an audience to his point of view, was considered essential to the aspiring politician and lawyer. A well delivered speech was a theatrical performance. During his training, a speaker learned how to compose a speech with great care and to deliver his words with drama, modulate emotion of the voice and choreograph hand gestures to wring the passions from every statement. The greatest orator of Agrippa’s lifetime was Cicero. He had been educated at Rhodes by Apollonius of Molon, the same
rhetor
who had taught Iulius Caesar.
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Of rhetoric, Cicero wrote as a young man of 20, ‘the duty of this faculty appears to be to speak in a manner suitable to persuading men; the end of it is to persuade by language.’
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He noted how ‘rhetoric is one great art comprised of five divisions: invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery’.
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Apollodorus would have coached his students in these respects and advised them how the successful speaker should use notes, paraphrase poetry and prose, and even wit to move his listeners.

Outside the classroom, with Caesar’s troops now occupying Rome, to survive Agrippa would need to keep his wits about him. Having the friendship of Caesar’s great nephew would help. Abandoned by many of its leading political figures – Cicero and Cato among them – Caesar had now assumed control of Rome. In just sixty days Caesar had secured the whole of Italy virtually without opposition.
¹³³
Remarkably he was conciliatory towards his opponents who had stayed behind and he also sent a deputation after Pompeius proposing terms of a truce.
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To prevent the legions coming to Pompeius’ assistance, however, he immediately set off for Hispania: his swift action neutralized them.
¹³⁵
Then he returned to Rome where the Senate appointed him
dictator
. After passing legislation to allow many exiles to return and to right certain injustices he resigned the post eleven days later and then departed at breakneck speed for Greece.
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At Apollonia he was joined by M. Antonius and together they set about provoking Pompeius to fight.
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Pompeius had had time to prepare for the inevitable encounter. Caesar was less well prepared than his friend turned foe and, in the absence of rations, his troops were forced to eat bread made of meal from ground up roots; but Pompeius’ men were demoralized too, fearful from having heard of the fierce reputation of the soldiers they were due to face.
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Finally on 9 August 48 BCE the army of the Senate – numbering 45,000 infantry and 7,000 cavalry – met Caesar’s – comprising 22,000 foot and 1,000 horse – at Pharsalus.
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Despite his greatly superior numbers, Pompieus was decisively defeated. Caesar pardoned
many of the captured men who had opposed him, including M. Iunius Brutus, a descendant of the man who had ousted Rome’s last king.
¹⁴⁰
Pompeius escaped to Egypt, but on reaching the shore he was struck down and beheaded by an officer of Pharoah Ptolemy XIII.
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Caesar was still in hot pursuit with
Legiones
VI and XXVII and only learned on his arrival in Alexandria of the fate of his opponent when he was shown his severed head. Caesar was said to have recoiled in horror at the sight of it, and accepting Pompeius’ personal seal ring, broke down in tears.
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Thereafter he supported the Egyptian king’s sister, wife and co-regent, Kleopatra VII, in her claim to the throne and began his famous liaison with her.
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