On the horizon he could see the ships coming. It was an impressive, but intimidating sight. Some 200 ships were making straight for his own fleet at speed, intent upon its destruction. Their ships were bigger too. He spotted the purple sail of the most imposing vessel. Aboard the ship covered with gold, glittering in the sunlight, was Kleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt. Somewhere among the line of ships in front of the Egyptian’s flotilla was the Roman vessel carrying his sworn enemy, M. Antonius.
The leaders on both sides had rolled the dice on this the second day of September 31 BCE. Upon the choppy waters beyond the narrow opening of the Gulf of Ambracia the almost evenly matched fleets of the two sides would soon clash, but only one force would emerge victorious. The outcome of the battle would determine the fate, not only of the main protagonists and the men they commanded, but of Egypt as an independent state and of the entire Roman world. Win it, and his friend – Iulius Caesar’s legitimate heir and inheritor of the great man’s name – had a straight shot at eliminating his opposition and returning to Rome as a hero and saviour. Lose it, and the Roman Empire could split into two, its eastern dominions would ally with potentates in Asia, or worse Parthia, and pull an ever tightening noose around the neck of its western rival by denying the Romans their grain supply and tax revenues. He might even be killed in the struggle.
Over the last decade he had earned his friend’s complete confidence. On account of it he had been entrusted with winning this critical battle. He had won naval engagements before; but in military matters, he knew only too well, that past results were no guarantee of future success. There was no margin for error today. Of this one thing his friend could be sure. His admiral would not rest until he had completed his mission. He swayed gently as the ship rocked on the swell of the sea. Then, over his left shoulder, he felt the breeze rising from the northwest. He had been expecting it. In fact, he had been counting on it.
Caesar’s commander was ready. His name was Marcus Agrippa.
* * *
Mystery enshrouds the origins and childhood of M. Agrippa. It seems that while he was alive he was keen to keep it that way. None of the historical records which have come down to us even preserve the name of his place of birth (origo). Central or southern Italy is usually presumed, but not certain. Based solely on his name, one candidate is Argyrippa – also known as Arpi (near modern Foggia) – a town of no particular importance in the first century BCE, located near Monte Gargano in Apulia (Puglia), which faces the Adriatic Sea and today is famous for its sandy beaches.1 Another is Arpinum (modern Arpino) in Latium, famous as the birthplace of the consuls C. Marius and M. Tullius Cicero.2 Yet others have been suggested, but these are no more than guesses. It was certainly not Rome, and that made him an outsider in the eyes of the privileged élite of the big city.3
His date of birth is also disputed. Pliny states that he died ‘in his fifty-first year’.4 Scholars still debate if this means he had already lived fifty-one years at the time of his death or if it was in the year he would become 51, in which case he had not yet reached his birthday. Cassius Dio asserts he died in the latter half of March 12 BCE.5 Thus, his birth year could have been as early as 64 or even as late as 62 BCE.6
His clan was the gens Vipsania, but it was obscure and next to nothing is known about it. No accounts of the founder of the family or his descendants survive. Agrippa himself consciously suppressed his association during his lifetime, dropping the nomen genticulum and preferring to be known simply as ‘M. Agrippa’ or plain ‘Agrippa’.7 Seneca the Elder records an informative episode from later in Agrippa’s life. He is recorded as having remarked that ‘he had been born Vipsanius Agrippa, but he had suffered the name of Vipsanius as a sort of proof of his father’s humble birth, and so now he was called M. Agrippa’.8 During a trial, the name Vispanius – or absence of it – was the cause of a joke:
When he was defending a party in a lawsuit there was an accuser who said: ‘Marcus … Agrippa, and that which is in the middle …’ (He wanted Vipsanius to be understood). It was he who then said: ‘Hurry, both of you! You will both have a disaster here unless one Marcus or the other responds to these matters!’9
Why the father’s humble birth was a source of acute embarrassment for the son is not known.
The name Agrippa had its own etymology. A cognomen was a nickname which often found its origins in the person’s physical appearance or some distinguishing feature. In Agrippa’s case there may have been a life-changing event which gave rise to his name. The polymath Pliny the Elder – writing in the mid-first century CE – records that the name Agrippa indicates ‘a difficult birth’, construed from a corruption of the Latin words aegre partus, explaining that ‘it is contrary to nature for children to come into the world with the feet first, for which reason such children are called agrippae’.10 ‘In this manner, M. Agrippa is said to have been born’, he continues, adding it was ‘the only instance, almost, of good fortune, out of the number of all those who have come into the world under these circumstances’.11 For Pliny, Agrippa was lucky to have survived the first hurdle of life at all, where others had fallen. The family’s nickname evidently did not trouble the man who bore it proudly – and perhaps even defiantly – for the rest of his life.
On the ninth day after his birth, the traditional lustratio, or purification ceremony, took place. During this cleansing rite his father, whose name was Lucius, formally accepted him as his son and gave him his full Roman name.12 About his mother, whose name is lost, nothing is known. He had one elder brother, who was named after his father, Lucius, and a sister, Vipsania Polla.13 Young Marcus likely played with his brother until either he or Lucius was old enough for school. Pliny alludes to misera iuventa – which translates as ‘the misfortunes of his youth’, or as ‘an unhappy youth’ – but does not elaborate.14 Any number of meanings can be read into the phrase – a family tragedy, parental abuse, bullying, poverty or poor health. Apparently as a young man he was generally physically fit and in good health, but he had to overcome ‘the unfortunate weakness of his legs’.15 His legs would come to trouble him in later life.
His immediate family’s history is as obscure. The family was not of the nobility (nobiles) and he was considered by them as ‘ignoble’ or ‘humble’ – words often used by Roman historians to describe him.16 These old established families with long histories considered him a novus homo, ‘new man’, a label laden with pejorative meaning.17 His family is assumed to have been plebeian, but a recently advanced theory proposes Agrippa was actually a second-generation Roman citizen whose equestrian-class grandfather or father had acquired citizenship after the Social War – also known as the Allied War – which afflicted Italy in 90 BCE and was won in favour of the allies.18 If his family was indeed equestrian rather than plebeian in status, Roman law required the head of the family to have property worth at least 400,000 sestertii in assets.19 Equites were engaged in commercial and money-lending activities – enterprises forbidden by law to patricians – and Agrippa’s father could have been an affluent individual during his career.20 He would need to be to pay for his youngest son’s education and lodging in Rome.21
Agrippa’s early life can, however, be partly reconstructed. From the age of 6 or 7, Agrippa likely attended classes of a litterator to learn to read and write, and to master basic arithmetic using the abacus.22 At 14, a grammaticus would have led him in the study of writers like Andronicus, Ennius and Homer, whose poetic and dramatic works contained insights from astronomy, geography, history, law, mathematics, military science, mythology and philosophy.23 Fluency in both Latin and Greek were encouraged at an early age, and Agrippa would have been required to demonstrate ability in class to discuss themes from texts in both languages.
In childhood Agrippa would have heard the tale of the rape and suicide of Lucretia, which led M. Iunius Brutus to overthrow the Romans’ last king and establish a new form of self-government by commonwealth (Res Publica); and stories of the valiant heroes who defended it, among them C. Mucius Scaevola, P. Horatius Cocles, Agrippa Menenius Lanatus, L. Quinctius Cincinnatus and M. Claudius Marcellus.24 But the Res Publica Agrippa grew up in was a shadow of the ideal nation state these men had fought for. By his day, the Roman commonwealth, that had been shared between the Senate and free citizens voting in their assemblies (see Appendix 1) for 500 years, was increasingly being manipulated by a few powerful men with immense wealth.25 Through bribery, nepotism and intimidation they overcame the system’s checks and balances to pass legislation and decrees favouring their own agendas or to target opponents. Many senators colluded to rig what was supposed to be a secret ballot based on chance, assigning overseas postings to the richest overseas provinces of the empire, which enabled them to fleece the local populations in their care and build enormous personal fortunes. Others augmented their assets through booty gained from wars of conquest provoked to further their own glory, not for the security of the Roman nation. Whereas in the past praetors and consuls led legions of fellow citizens to fight wars in the name of the state, these oligarchs could raise armies paid for from their own resources. The loyalty of these military units was not to the commonwealth, but to their commanders-in-chief who paid their salaries and promised them rich spoils of war and land if they lived to be honourably discharged.26 Politically-motivated emergencies could be provoked, extraordinary powers were then concentrated into a few hands and opposition would be proscribed for death or declared enemies of the state. These were dangerous times for an aspirational young man to grow up in. Dominating the early years of Agrippa’s life were men whose names still resound through history, even after two thousand years: Cn. Pompeius Magnus, M. Licinius Crassus and C. Iulius Caesar. As leading protagonists in contemporary events, their unfolding careers would provide young Agrippa with practical lessons in power and politics. Their story starts forty-six years before Agrippa was born, but what they did would shape his world and impact his life.
At the end of the second century BCE, the Roman state had faced down an invasion of Celtic and Germanic tribes from the north. Led by then consul C. Marius (born 157 BCE), who was assisted by his ambitious deputy L. Cornelius Sulla (born c. 138 BCE), they defeated up to 200,000 invaders with a force of just 55,000 in the foothills of the Italian Alps at Vercellae.27 In gratitude for saving the nation, Marius’ consulship was renewed for the following year, 100 BCE, making it his sixth.28 It was an extraordinary achievement for an individual regarded as a novus homo. While patricians born of families tracing their origins to the founding of the republic treated such upstarts from the outlying towns of Latium and beyond with suspicion and even derision, however, many of these aristocrats, as well as the great number of common people (plebs), now had to admit that the Roman state had indeed been rescued from disaster by him. Ironically, the battle won on the Raudian Plain marked a turning point in Marius’ illustrious career and his personal prestige. Recognizing the contribution of the Italian allies (socii), Marius had granted them the right of Roman citizenship for bravery in the war.29 Up until Vercellae, Rome’s Italian allies had been considered as second class to its own free-born citizens. Though motivated by a sense of justice Marius had failed to observe protocol by not first consulting the Senate or Popular Assemblies: it was simply not his right to issue citizenships.30 By acting in this way, the ‘new man’ had fulfiled the worst expectations of the conservative Conscript Fathers – he had snubbed the ancient institution and acted unilaterally in the manner of a dictator or, worse, a king.31 It set a terrible precedent.
While the Roman response at Vercellae sent a clear warning to would-be invaders of Italy to ‘keep out’, it was the Romans themselves who now threatened the hard-won peace across the peninsula. In 91 BCE a dispute broke out between the Romans and their Italian allies over the issue of rights granted by citizenship and equal treatment before the courts in Rome. The disagreement led to what became known as the War of the Allies or Social War (Bellum Sociorum).32 Marius was given command of the Roman army, but fearing he would grow too powerful, and perhaps now in poor health, he was persuaded to relinquish it. Cornelius Sulla took over leadership of the Roman forces and led them to victory in 88 BCE. A new threat, meanwhile, had emerged when Mithradates VI of Pontus laid claim on Rome’s dominions in Asia Minor and Greece. Tragically, the Romans’ response to the threat split along society class lines. The Plebeian Council (see Appendix 1) voted unanimously for Marius to lead the war against Mithradates, but the Senate supported Sulla.33 He refused to accept the validity of the popular vote and civil war ensued. Sulla’s army marched directly on Rome, took the city and asserted his right to rule. It was the first time that a Roman commander had committed this act of treason against the Res Publica. Once in control, he declared Marius an enemy of the state (hostis publicus) and forced him into exile.34 Sulla then promptly left Rome to fight the war in the East. Meanwhile, aided by his ally L. Cornelius Cinna, Marius plotted his return from Africa and, in 87 BCE, at the head of his own army he re-entered Rome.35 He immediately banished Sulla in absentia and repealed his regressive laws. Marius died just a few months later – apparently of natural causes, but despised by the people as a tyrant – leaving Cinna ruling Rome alone.36 Sulla was incensed. Having signed a peace treaty with Mithradates, he reentered Rome in 82 BCE under arms whereupon the Senate granted him the authority of dictator – giving him supreme but time-limited power to deal with an emergency – and he promptly purged the city of his enemies by way of proscriptions and instituted far reaching reforms of the constitution.37 His work done, he surprised everyone when he resigned within a year and retired to write his memoirs.38 Sulla died from liver failure or a ruptured gastric ulcer aged 60 in 78 BCE and was buried with a lavish state funeral.39
Into the vacuum left by Sulla stepped two powerful men. Born in 106 BCE, Cn. Pompeius was an unlikely protégé of Sulla.40 Having taken part in the war against Mithradates in 83 BCE, Pompeius went on to help defeat the remaining supporters of Marius in Italy and secured Sicily for Sulla and, with it, the grain supply which fed Rome’s hungry bellies.41 Building on his military successes, in 81 BCE he took an army to Africa, where he defeated the last of the Marians, Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, and the Numidian king Iarbas.42 Recognizing his skillful leadership, his own troops acclaimed him imperator, an honorific title meaning ‘commander’.43 By then he had come to the notice of Sulla who unofficially – and perhaps mockingly – called him magnus, ‘the Great’, a nickname which stuck.44 When Pompeius demanded a triumph for his victories, Sulla refused, saying the honour was reserved for military success over non-Romans; but the younger man took his protest directly to Rome with an army to back his claim. Sulla relented and agreed to allow Pompeius Magnus a victory procession, but only after he had celebrated his own first.45 The event was something of a fiasco, causing Pompeius more embarrassment than adulation.46 His attempts to rise up the political career ladder (cursus honorum) were as unsuccessful. His reputation would not be made in the courtroom or Senate House, however, but in the provinces and on the battlefield. When Sulla died, he was campaigning against the renegade proconsul Q. Sertorius who had established an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula.47 He was popular with the local people and attracted the support of Roman colonials and ruled for six years.48 Supplemented by troops who had defected to his cause, Sertorius commanded a sizeable army and was able to resist Pompeius’ attempts to defeat him to the point where he had to appeal to the Senate for reinforcements.49 Sertorius was finally brought down, not by a superior army, but by one of his own officers. Pompeius claimed victory, restored the region to Roman control and administered it with noted efficiency.50
Independently another student of Sulla was advancing his own career. Born around 115 BCE, as a young man M. Licinius Crassus had fled Cinna’s proscriptions and rallied to Sulla’s cause in Africa.51 He proved his value by helping to oust Marius from Rome at the final Battle of the Colline Gate in 82 BCE.52 His loyalty was handsomely rewarded during the ensuing confiscations, in particular, of the property of Sulla’s enemies in the city.53 Over time he added to his portfolio by using his privately-owned fire service to callously browbeat homeowners into either paying for protection or face losing their homes during Rome’s all-too frequent fires.54 Those unable to pay, and subsequently finding their properties destroyed, had little choice but to sell their smouldering ruins to him at deep discounts. He then built squalid tenements on the scorched land and leased them out at exorbitant rents. By these means, he amassed property which Pliny the Elder assessed to be worth 200,000,000 sestertii.55
In the summer of 73 BCE reports arrived in Rome of a slave revolt led by the gladiators Spartacus the Thracian and Crixus the Gaul.56 At first the Senate underestimated the threat and failed to mobilize a full and overwhelming response. Embarrassingly, the army of gladiators from Capua, and the thousands of slaves they liberated from the surrounding farms of southern Italy, successfully defeated the legions sent to squash them. For almost two years the growing slave army roamed freely across Italy, wandering as far north as the Alps, before turning south for the heal of the peninsula.57 Grabbing the opportunity, Crassus accepted the Senate’s offer of command of an army to lead a counter offensive.58 He had underestimated his challenge, however. The gladiator-trained army proved to be a formidable opponent. In one battle, men from Crassus’ army fled the field and the embarrassed commander was unable to win the day.59 To enforce discipline Crassus angrily resorted to the ancient practice of decimation, in which every tenth man in a unit was chosen by lot for execution.60 For his action Crassus earned a reputation as a fierce and feared disciplinarian.61 Meanwhile, Pompeius had been recalled to Italy to support Crassus.62 He audaciously attempted to belittle Crassus’ glory by claiming in a letter to the Senate that his was the decisive role in ending the Gladiator War, while his rival had merely defeated some slaves.63 Spartacus continued to evade Crassus until his army hunted them down and engaged them at the Battle of the Siler River in the spring of 71 BCE.64 There Spartacus’ rebel band was finally destroyed by the Roman forces. Crassus ordered an estimated 6,000 of the captives crucified along the Via Appia.65 In the event, Crassus was not awarded a full triumph, but an ovatio,a lower grade of victory celebration.66 From that point on animosity grew between the two men, though they both managed to tolerate each other’s company long enough to serve as consuls for the year 70.67 Just 35 years old and up to that point in his career not even a serving member of the Senate, Pompeius had risen meteorically, and the means by which he had done so set a precedent other men could use to circumvent the age qualifications of the cursus honorum.68 He was further rewarded three years years later with the passing of the Lex Gabinia, which, to the consternation of some senators, but urged by Crassus, granted him full legal proconsular power (imperium proconsulare) to crush the pirates who harassed traders along the coast of any province within fifty miles of the Mediterranean Sea.69 It gave Pompeius unprecedented power over an enormous swath of Roman territory.
Crassus now pursued his political interests in earnest. In 65 BCE he was appointed censor – a position responsible for checking the credentials of senators and ensuring that those found guilty of criminal activities were barred from serving in public office – during which he achieved nothing of significance.70 Among Rome’s up and coming generation, he noticed an ambitious and charismatic, but impoverished, young aristocrat and saw potential in him. His name was C. Iulius Caesar. Born in July 101 or 100 BCE, he was a nephew of Marius who had survived Sulla’s proscriptions by going into hiding.71 After serving in the army in Asia, Caesar returned to Rome where he climbed the first rungs of his political career, becoming quaestor in 75 BCE.72 In each post he spent lavishly, investing his own money for the upkeep of roads when appointed curator viarum, or paying for 320 pairs of gladiators, theatrical performances and public banquets as aedile.73 These displays brought Caesar notoriety and popularity, though in reality, as Plutarch notes, he was ‘buying things of the highest value at a small price’.74 From Crassus he received his financial backing to seize the post of Pontifex Maximus in 63, a priesthood which only expired upon the holder’s death.75
The year 63 – the first of Agrippa’s life – was an extraordinary one. As proconsul of the East, Pompeius defeated and buried Mithradates VI (who had committed suicide), founded the new province of Syria by taking the Seleucid kingdom by force, and helped install Hyrcanus II on the throne of Iudaea by besieging Hierosolyma (modern Jerusalem).76 From his official residence (Domus Publica)in the heart of the Forum Romanum beside the House of the Vestal Virgins, Caesar exercised the rights and privileges of the ancient religious office, wielding quiet but powerful influence through the political system. In the nearby Curia Hostilia where the Senate met, a passionate courtroom lawyer with a gift for public speaking was then serving as consul. Born in 106 BCE in Arpinum, M. Tullius Cicero was a ‘new man’ like Agrippa who spent much of his life struggling to be accepted by the conservative bloc of the Roman upper class (optimates).77 Despite being an outsider, he had proved to be a skilled courtroom advocate with an unrivalled talent for oratory.78 He was a passionate champion of the Roman Commonwealth, and had enjoyed the support of Crassus and Pompeius.79 As he would repeatedly claim forever after, he spent his year as consul saving the Res Publica: that year L. Sergius Catilina, having failed to win the consulship himself, had attempted to engineer a coup d’état and set up a new minority government of wealthy patricians.80 Fatefully Cicero made the decision to have the ringleaders executed, but Catilina managed to escape and raise an army in northern Italy. The decision would come back to haunt him. ‘What a thankless task’, he would tell the Senate on 9 November, ‘no less than administering it, is preserving the Res Publica!’81
One of the men Cicero accused of participating in the conspiracy was P. Clodius Pulcher. The evidence suggests he actually had nothing to do with the plot but it suited the consul’s ends to implicate the man who had positioned himself as a champion of the urban plebs.82 In the eyes of the optimates, like M. Porcius Cato Uticensis who despised corruption, he was seen as a disruptive force in Roman politics; Clodius was one of the populares, a loose coalition of senators holding a populist agenda, which included redistributing land and supporting free distributions of grain to the poor. One of Rome’s colourful characters, he had previously served as a legatus and took part in the third war against Mithradates under his brother-in-law L. Licinius Lucullus, but, taking umbridge at the lack of respect he felt was shown, he led a revolt.83 On his return to Rome, he embroiled himself in sexual liaisons with prominent citizens’ wives – including Lucullus’ – and gate-crashed a sacred rite of the Bona Dea, the ‘Good Goddess’, in which he dressed as a woman intending to seducing the Pontifex Maximus’ wife Pompeia, with whom he was in love.84 He was discovered.85 The ensuing scandal dragged on for several months. Despite the appearance of Cicero as a star witness for the prosecution, with the collusion of Caesar (who claimed to know nothing) and the largesse of Crassus (who bribed the jury) Clodius was acquitted on the criminal charge of incestus, ‘sexual immorality’.86
In 61 BCE, on his forty-fifth birthday, Pompeius re-entered Rome in triumph.87 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.90 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.91 To bind them together, Caesar offered his daughter Iulia to Pompeius in marriage.92 The following year Caesar was rewarded with election as consul.93 He immediately began work on legislation to redistribute land to Rome’s poor, despite strong opposition from Cato and Lucullus.94 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.97 It was aimed squarely at Cicero, who went hurriedly into exile in northern Greece.98 All his properties in Italy were confiscated and his home on the Palatinus in Rome was razed.99 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.100
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.103 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.105 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.106 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 54.107 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).116 With them, driving a hired cart, Plutarch reports, was Iulius Caesar.117 Soon they came to the banks of the Rubico – the accepted border of demilitarized home-land.118 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’.119 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.120 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.121 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.122 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.123
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.124 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.125 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.126 His mother, Atia, however, was Iulius Caesar’s niece, and this connection would prove highly significant.127 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.128 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.129 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.130 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.’131 He noted how ‘rhetoric is one great art comprised of five divisions: invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery’.132 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.134 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.136 At Apollonia he was joined by M. Antonius and together they set about provoking Pompeius to fight.137 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.138 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.139 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.141 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.142 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.143
From Egypt Caesar went to Asia Minor, where he defeated Pharnakes (Pharnaces), the son of Mithradates VI of Pontus, at the Battle of Zela (modern Zile in northern Turkey); afterwards he wrote a letter to Amanitius in Rome in which he used the famous phrase veni, vidi, vici – ‘came, saw, won’.144 Meanwhile the remnants of the Pompeian opposition had assembled in Africa, among whom was Agrippa’s own brother Lucius.145 Taking six legions with him, Caesar engaged the diehards, led by Cato and Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio, but the struggle was tougher than he had anticipated because they had augmented their numbers with the forces of King Iuba II of Numidia.146 Only after he had called upon his veterans – seasoned men who were recalled after leaving the service – did he have the numbers he needed to finally engage his opponents at Thapsus. On 6 April 46 BCE, his enemies were crushed with casualties reported – probably with great exaggeration – as high as 50,000 to less than fifty on his own side.147 Returning from Africa to Rome, in September 46 BCE he celebrated an unprecedented quadruple triumph during which Kleopatra put in a guest appearance – Octavius was permitted to follow behind him.148 It was an unforgettable four-day event Agrippa may himself have witnessed as an 18-year-old.
While the Roman world turned upside down, young Marcus was still at school mastering the art of public speaking. His friendship with Octavius emboldened him to ask a favour of his friend’s great uncle:
His brother [Lucius] was with Cato [Uticensis] and treated with much respect; he had participated in the African War, but was at this time taken captive. Although Octavius had never yet asked anything of Caesar he wanted to beg the prisoner off, but he hesitated because of modesty and at the same time because he saw how Caesar was disposed toward those who had been captured in that war. However, he made bold to ask it, and had his request granted. Thereupon he was very glad at having rescued a brother for his friend and he was praised by others for employing his zeal and right of intercession first of all for a friend’s safety.149
Whether Iulius Caesar had met Agrippa at this point is unknown, but by Nikolaos of Damaskos’ account he was clearly aware of his great nephew’s friend. In the meantime, Caesar had placed Octavius in charge of productions at two theatres in Rome, in which Agrippa may have assisted.150
The Roman commander now turned his attention to the Iberian Peninsula where Cnaeus and Sextus Pompeius, the sons of Pompeius Magnus, aided by Caesar’s own former deputy T. Labienus who had played a prominent role in the Gallic War, were leading a revolt.151 Caesar instructed his 17-year-old great nephew to join him.152 Gaining first-hand military experience was a pre-requisite for a successful political career. Just seventeen years earlier, Cicero had said:
preeminence in military skills excels all other virtues. It is this which has procured its name for the glory of the Roman people; it is this which has compelled the whole world to submit to our dominion; all domestic affairs, all these illustrious pursuits of ours, and our forensic renown, and our industry, are safe under the protection of military valour. The highest dignity is in those men who excel in military glory.153
For a regular soldier (miles gregarius), training to turn a citizen into a war fighter (bellator) and instilling the warrior ethic in him was organized and intense (plate 8). For an officer it was very different. Remarkably, despite the great value placed on war fighting, there was no formal officer training in the Roman world. Experience had to be gained the hard way through active service. Personal prestige was earned by proving one’s courage (virtus) through acting boldly and showing no weakness in the heat of battle, especially at the risk of losing one’s own life. Perhaps Iulius Caesar saw the campaign in Hispania Ulterior as a low risk theatre of operations in which Octavius could become an officer and learn how to command soldiers under his aegis. Octavius agreed to join his great uncle, but Nikolaos records that he was taken ill from overexerting himself on the theatre productions and was deemed not fit enough to accompany him on the outbound journey in November 46.154 It is possible, however, that Agrippa, now old enough to enrol in the army, did set off to join Caesar on his campaign. The poet M. Manlius makes a cryptic comment to the effect that Agrippa had begun military service at a young age, though at what level of command he does not say.155 It was certainly an unmissable career opportunity. As a plebeian he would likely have started service as a one of the regular legionaries, 6,000 at full strength, organized into centuries of eighty men under the command of a centurio (plate 6). Six centuries formed a cohort – the basic tactical unit – and ten cohortes formed a legion. However, as a member of the equestrian class he would have been eligible to join as a junior officer, likely as one of the five junior military tribunes (tribuni angusticlavi) in a legion.156 Caesar had taken a group of young aristocrats and equestrians with him on his Gallic campaign, hoping they would be eager to prove themselves on the battlefield, but they were political appointments and he was disappointed by the lack of initiative or courage many displayed. For a man at the beginning of his career it was a spectacular way to learn military science directly from one of its legendary master practitioners. Such a position could give the young man direct access to the legate of the legion (usually a senator) – perhaps to proconsul Caesar himself – and a place at his concilium (the handpicked advisory war council) where he would see at first hand the general deliberate over his strategy and tactics with his deputies. Agrippa might have been granted a special dispensation as a friend of Caesar’s great nephew and served as an officer – if not a tribune then possibly as one of the immunes or principales (plate 7) who had special duties, but it is entirely speculative.
On 17 March 45 BCE, Iulius Caesar engaged the rebels with the help of the same legions who had brought him victory in Gallia Comata.157 Agrippa may have been there (map 1). At Munda, on a plain between the two camps of the opposing forces, were arrayed the Pompeian battle lines consisting of 13 legions, screened on the flanks by cavalry as well as 6,000 lightly-armed troops plus nearly as many again of auxiliary troops; and Caesar’s much smaller force, composed of only 8 legions and 8,000 cavalry.158 Caesar placed Legio X – his strongest – on the right wing and Legiones III and V with the auxiliary cohors equitata on the right. On the given order, the brass horns sounded, the men bellowed out a terrible war cry and Caesar’s soldiers rushed towards Pompeius’ dense line, swords drawn and shields held close. In his own account of the battle Iulius Caesar writes,
and so, as the motley din – shouts, groans, the clash of gladii – assailed their ears, it shackled the minds of the inexperienced with fear. Hereupon, as Ennius puts it, ‘foot forces against foot and weapons grind ’gainst weapons’; and in the teeth of very strong opposition our men began to drive the enemy back.159
The opposing troops then retreated behind the walls of the nearby town of Munda, which Caesar’s men then blockaded under the command of Q. Fabius Maximus.160 To strike fear into the men trapped inside they resorted to a form of psychological warfare:
Scuta and pila taken from among the enemy’s weapons were placed to serve as a palisade, dead bodies as a rampart; on top, impaled on gladius points, severed human heads were ranged in a row all facing the town, the object being not merely to enclose the enemy by a palisade, but to afford him an awe-inspiring spectacle by displaying before him this evidence of valour.161
The siege was conducted both by day and by night. The Pompeians finally capitulated and 14,000 men were taken captive.162 Meantime, rumours reached Sex. Pompeius in Corduba (modern Cordoba) that the battle was lost. He departed leaving word that he was going to parley with Caesar. Meanwhile an attempt by his brother to escape via the naval base at Calpia (Carteia), 170 miles away from Corduba, was foiled and when Caesar’s men intercepted the fugitive they decapitated him.163 In the confusion, Sextus managed to get away.164 The campaign would have been a brutal introduction to war fighting for a young novice soldier more used to the life in the big city.
However, there is a possible alternative version of Agrippa’s first military engagement. When he had fully recovered, Octavius himself departed with a retinue of slaves, landing at Tarraco (Taragona) in Hispania Citerior.165 Once there, he was dismayed to discover that Caesar had already long since left and Octavius had to follow after him as best he could, putting himself at risk from attacks by brigands as well as his uncle’s fleeing enemies as he headed deeper inland.166 When he finally did track down his great uncle to Calpia, Octavius was warmly greeted and treated to the comforts of his own tent and transportation.167 Expecting to be told the details of his mission, he learned, however, that Caesar had already won the war, completing the mission in just seven months!168 Curiously, even though he was last to depart, it seems Octavius ‘was the first of those who had set out from Rome to arrive’.169 If Agrippa was one of those who had departed the city first, taking Nikolaos’ remark at face value, he also missed the fight – and with it the chance for glory.170 Perhaps for actually carrying out his orders and following him to Spain, Octavius was appointed by Caesar to join the pontificate, an order of priests, and granted the post of Master of Horse (magister equitum), an honorary postion he awarded at his own discretion for one year.171 Agrippa received no equivalent honours at this time.