Ancient writers characterize the Iberian peoples in stereotypical terms as bandits and robbers, unable to form strategic alliances with their neighbours without quickly resorting to knavery.¹⁷⁰ Even Dio denigrates the Cantabrian rebels as captives who had risen against their masters.¹⁷¹ The Romans were foolish to believe such misconceptions. The rugged terrain and guerrilla mode of fighting, even with smaller forces, put the Romans, who trained relentlessly for set-piece battles or sieges, at a great disadvantage. Agrippa had experienced first-hand similar tactics in Illyricum during the early-mid 30s BCE, but he had not personally led a major campaign since the Actian War. The twelve year hiatus from campaigning would catch the Roman commander by surprise. Indeed, his opening moves in the campaign did not go well, and he could not gain the upper hand. ‘In fighting against the Cantabri,’ writes Dio, ‘he met with many reverses.’¹⁷² He faced a tough and motivated opponent, ‘for not only had they gained practical experience, as a result of having been slaves to the Romans, but also despaired of having their lives granted to them again if they were taken captive’.¹⁷³ For a while it must have seemed that he had lost his leadership edge.

The details of the war of 19 BCE are entirely lost to us.¹⁷⁴ Based on their previously reported strategies and tactics, we may surmise that the Astures and Cantabri launched ambuscades from the hills upon Roman troops while on the march, attacked their temporary marching camps and attempted to storm civilian settlements. The war of 26–25 BCE had been one of siege warfare and raiding rather than pitched battles. Basing his command operations centre at Segisama, Augustus had divided his forces into three army groups with which he successfully enveloped the whole of Cantabria and, as Florus poetically describes the manoeuvre in hunting terms, ‘enclosed its fierce people like wild beasts in a net’.¹⁷⁵ It may have been during this period that Legio VIIII received its war honour (agnomen) Hispana or Hispaniensis. He also cut off any chance of escape the Cantabri may have contemplated by using his navy to patrol the Bay of Biscay and land marines as required.

The Romans’ first battle against the Cantabrians was fought under the walls of Attica or Bergida (whose locations are unknown).¹⁷⁶ From there, the Cantabri then retreated to Mons Vindius (possibly Peña Santa), expecting the Romans not to follow.¹⁷⁷ They did. After a stout resistance, the city of Aracillum or Racilium (possibly modern Aradillos or Espina del Gallego) fell to Augustus’ troops.¹⁷⁸ The last battle in the campaign was the siege of Mons Medullus (possibly Peña Sagra) above the Minius (Miño) River.¹⁷⁹ The Roman army surrounded it with a continuous earthwork comprising a ditch and parapet 15 or 18 miles long, and began a direct assault.¹⁸⁰ The defenders were trapped. Rather than being taken alive, we are told many of the inhabitants committed suicide by poison, others by fire or sword.¹⁸¹ Strabo notes that facing the prospect of captivity Cantabrian mothers resorted to killing their children, but the theme of ‘death rather than surrender’ among people living among mountains was another stereotype of Roman authors writing about savage barbarians.¹⁸²

During that gruesome war the assumedly unsophisticated Asturians had also shown a flash of insight into military strategy which took the Romans quite by surprise. Coming down from the mountains they established a position on the Astura River not far from the three Roman camps. Dividing their forces into three groups they launched a simultaneous attack on the Roman camps.¹⁸³ They might have succeeded were it not for their betrayal by the Brigaecini and the arrival of legatus Augusti pro praetore P. Carisius with his army as a result of their warnings, and the Romans were saved from defeat. The Astures retreated to their principal fortified city of Lancea (another place of unknown location) which opened its gates to them.¹⁸⁴ After a siege by direct assault the town fell. The Roman commander managed to persuade his soldiers not to raze the city to the ground, pleading that it would be a more fitting monument to Roman victory if it were left standing rather than burnt down. Even with Augustus recuperating in Tarraco and C. Antistius Vetus continuing on, the war of 26–25 BCE was finally won.¹⁸⁵ The local mint at Colonia Augusta Emerita (modern Mérida), founded just at the end of the war for veterans of Legiones V Alaudae and X Gemina, issued coins in Carisius’ name emblazoned with images of captured spears, curved swords and round shields, piled up high as a trophy on the reverse.¹⁸⁶

The Hispanic warriors were not done, however. There was a further outbreak after Carisius retired his post in 23.¹⁸⁷ Dio ascribes the cause of this new revolt by the Astures to the extravagant lifestyle led by Carisius and the cruel manner in which he administered the region, whereas the Cantabri joined their neighbours only because they saw an opportunity to make trouble while the new governor C. Furnius settled in.¹⁸⁸ They had both underestimated the new governor. Following their failed attempt to besiege a Roman stronghold, the Astures were quickly defeated by Furnius in open battle.¹⁸⁹ The separate Cantabrian assault made little impact, and seeing no possibility for victory, they set their townships to the torch and took their own lives by poison, rather than fall into Roman hands. Yet many others surrendered, resolving to fight another day.

Inheriting this turbulent legacy, Agrippa found the latest war to be a true test of his abilities. For a while the insurgents’ strategies and tactics worked, wearing down the Roman troops, resulting in heavy casualties. Dio records that Agrippa ‘lost many of his soldiers’ and his opponents ‘degraded many others because they kept being defeated’, a state of affairs which must have greatly vexed the champion of Actium and Aquitania.¹⁹⁰ It was Illyricum of 35–34 BCE all over again. Particularly galling to him was the performance of Legio Augusta – probably I rather than II. Its seeming inability to beat its adversary led Agrippa to demand that it be stripped of the honorific title given by Augustus – a deeply humiliating act for the troops who had likely won it for gallantry during recent actions.¹⁹¹ Yet Agrippa was never one to give up if there was a chance of success. Dogged determination to see the mission through and unswerving loyalty to his friend drove Agrippa to push his deputies and men harder in the fight. It was what they had trained for. A later historian would remark how Roman army training periods were bloodless combats while their combats were bloody drills.¹⁹² Eventually he gained the upper hand. ‘Finally Agrippa was successful,’ records Dio, adding ‘he at length destroyed nearly all of the enemy who were of military age, deprived the rest of their arms, and forced them to come down from their fortresses and live in the plains’.¹⁹³ Agrippa had won the Bellum Cantabricum et Asturicum.¹⁹⁴ While the Roman Commonwealth was grateful to its commander, his own reaction hints that he was not particularly proud of the victory:

Yet he sent no communication concerning them to the Senate, and did not accept a triumph, although one was voted at the behest of Augustus, but showed moderation in these matters as was his wont; and once, when asked by the consul for his opinion about his brother, he would not give it.¹⁹⁵

Agrippa is once again presented as the self-deprecating general, turning down a public honour; but his bashfulness may have masked his true feelings. Was his modesty a way to save face from the humiliation of the poor conduct of the men he had commanded against a smaller force? Was it a sign of disappointment at his own leadership of the war? Or did he now feel bold enough to answer to no one else other than Augustus? Without being able to read his own memoirs, we cannot ever know.

Yet his hard-won victory achieved what many commanders before him had not. He had broken the resolve of the two last indomitable nations which had stood against Roman annexation over several campaigns, and by doing so he had concluded the two century-long war to complete the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.¹⁹⁶ Possibly on Agrippa’s advice, even when forces were later drawn down for deployment elsewhere in the empire, the Romans never stationed fewer that two legions there.¹⁹⁷ While he refused a triumph, Agrippa did accept a corona muralis (plate 32), a military honour – made of gold and decorated with turrets – granted to the first man to scale the wall of a besieged city.¹⁹⁸ It was depicted on gold and silver coins as worn by Agrippa in combination with his corona navalis.¹⁹⁹ With control restored, the Romans could begin economic exploitation of the region. The great lure was gold, previously denied them. They wasted no time and brought all their technological know-how to the challenge of extracting it. The Romans would soon earn a handsome return on their long term investment in blood and treasure in Hispania Citerior – a reported 20,000 pounds of gold were produced each year following its conquest.²⁰⁰ Apart from one minor outburst in 16 BCE, this region of the peninsula would remain peaceful for hundreds of years.²⁰¹

In the aftermath of violence, Agrippa left his mark in more pacific ways before leaving the region for the last time. Veterans were settled, such as at Colonia Caesaraugusta (plate 33). To grace the developing Colonia Augusta Emerita in Lusitania, he paid for a new public building whose scale rivalled those in Arausio or Arelate in cosmopolitan Gallia Narbonensis.²⁰² The hemicycular theatre of grey granite, which was partly built into a hill and could seat 6,000, featured a high stage and an architectural backdrop (scaenae frons).²⁰³ It provided the city’s army veterans with a place to enjoy comedies, tragedies and pantomimes, or hear readings of books of history and poetry. The engraved inscription mounted above the entrance archway (plate 34) to the orchestra and the holes for bronze letters over aditus maximus confirm Agrippa was its benefactor, but he did not see it completed as it was finished between 16 and 14 BCE.²⁰⁴ Behind the building there may have been a small sanctuary for the burgeoning imperial cult, based on the find of a fine togate bust of Augustus. It was long thought that, delighted by their gift, the citizens paid for a colossal state of Agrippa to be erected in the marble forum; however, current thinking is that the inscription below – which says ‘AGRIPPA’ on the left edge of the plinth – indicates the sculpture was actually one of a group of Rome’s mythical kings of Alba Longa, ancestors of Augustus.²⁰⁵ In neighbouring Baetica, one Utia acknowledged Agrippa as his patron, while in municipium Gades (modern Cadiz), which also functioned as a naval base, the mint struck coins calling him patronus et parens of the community.²⁰⁶ In Hispania Citerior, the citizens of Carthago Nova (Cartagena) – where veterans had settled and renamed it grandly Colonia Victrix Iulia Nova Carthago – elected him to the honorary office of praefectus quinquennalis along with Augustus.²⁰⁷ Agrippa did not take on the duties in person – they were delegated to a local dignitary – but it was recognition of the high regard in which the local people held him.

Water, Water Everywhere

In Rome, on 9 June 19 BCE the massive construction work on the Aqua Virgo was finally completed. It was given the official name of Aqua Augusta (plate 29), though it continued to be popularly known as the Virgo.²⁰⁸ The structure now extended from its source on the east side of the city for 14,105 paces or 21.5km (13 miles).²⁰⁹ It included a 700ft section delivering water to the Trans Tiberim region across the river using the Pons Agrippae to support its conduit. For most of its length it was a covered channel (specus). This was a practical measure; Frontinus noted an underground channel was less prone to accidental damage and from the extremes of heat and cold.²¹⁰ The water of the Virgo was kept fresh and free of sediment using a series of zigzags in the route it took, which, together with the gentle incline of just 0.02 per cent, slowed the flow of the water just enough to cause any sand or gravel to sink to the bottom of the conduit.²¹¹ According to Frontinus, who was appointed curator aquarum by Emperor Nerva, the Aqua Virgo supplied a constant 2,504 quinariae or approximately 1.2m³ (42.3ft³) per second or almost 104,000m³ (3,700,00ft³) of water per day.²¹² Fascinated by such things, as aedile, technically-minded Agrippa is known to have kept a dossier of personal notes (commentarii) recording volumes of water flowing to public and private buildings.²¹³ The conduit only emerged above ground beyond the Pincius Hill – below the Gardens of Lucullus (Horti Luculliani) – whence it continued over arches for 700 paces west of the Quirinalis to the Campus Martius, terminating at the Saepta Iulia.²¹⁴ At the terminus a tower (castellum) – one of eighteen in the Virgo system – distributed the water through underground lead pipes to a set of civic amenities Agrippa’s engineers had constructed to dazzle and entertain the Roman public.²¹⁵

Adjoining and expanding the original covered Spartan Baths erected in 25 BCE, a new complex of damp heat baths had been built (map 11). Called the Thermae Agrippae it was a marvel of hydraulic engineering. There had been bathing complexes in Rome before, but in scale and lavishness the Baths of Agrippa were the first of their kind and, for the next three centuries, future rulers of Rome would try to outdo them in size and luxury.²¹⁶ The building, oriented north and south on the same axis as the Pantheon and Saepta Iulia, covered an area of approximately 100–120m (328–393ft) north and south and 80–100m (262–328ft) east and west.²¹⁷ Only a part of a later rebuilding of its main hall has survived (plate 16) and is visible behind the houses in the Via dell’ Arco della Ciambella of the modern city, and its proportions are truly massive. It comprised a series of rooms of increasing heat, starting with a warm room (tepidarium), next to a very hot room (caldarium) – each fitted with inset pools and raised basins, heated by the hypocaust under floor hot air system – and concluded with a cold room (frigidarium) and plunge pool.²¹⁸ The rooms were of immense size, with high vaulted ceilings, all lavishly decorated from floor to roof with coloured tiles and fine artworks.²¹⁹ This enlightened public art policy advocated by Agrippa seems to have proved highly popular for, when the Emperor Tiberius later removed the statue by Lysippos of Sikyon – considered one the three greatest Greek sculptors of the Classical Age – called Apoxyomenos (‘the Bodyscraper’) from the plinth outside the baths, where it had been set by Agrippa, to his bedroom and replaced it with a statue by a lesser artist, the people took their complaint to the theatre where they protested loudly and forced him to return the piece.²²⁰

Like the Greek statue, guests attended the baths nude. They changed out of their clothes in a public locker-room where they could leave their belongings in alcoves. Fitness enthusiasts could avail themselves of the colonnaded exercise yard outside. Keen swimmers could use the Euripus, a manmade canal fed directly by the Aqua Virgo – indeed, an estimated 20 per cent of the water it carried was just for this purpose – which extended right down to the Tiber.²²¹ The first to try the fresh spring water as it filled the canal and bathing pools were struck by its coldness, clarity and purity. The soft, cool water was considered particularly fine to swim in and the poet Martial declared that it was so brilliantly clear that an observer could scarcely perceive it even was there, and only the polished marble surface over which it flowed, with barely a ripple, revealing it.²²² Seneca used to mark the beginning of the New Year by taking a cold plunge in the Virgo, while Ovid hung around its porticoes to enjoy the views of the Campus Martius, and to find women.²²³

To the west of the bathing complex, Agrippa created an immense artificial lake, the Stagnum Agrippae, but about which little is known. Completing and uniting these leisure facilities, between Euripus and the artificial lake Agrippa created a great park called the Horti Agrippae. Eager to leave Rome’s crowded streets and cramped alleyways, people thronged the park’s gravel paths to enjoy the manicured lawns and careful plantings, managed fishponds and collections of artworks.²²⁴ Art mattered to Agrippa, and it was important to him that it could be enjoyed by all. He made an impassioned speech during his lifetime on the subject of public ownership of art, about which Pliny the Elder later wrote:

we have a magnificent oration of his, and one well worthy of the greatest of our citizens, on the advantage of exhibiting in public all pictures and statues; a practice which would have been far preferable to sending them into banishment at our country-houses.²²⁵

Among the many items put on display in the new Gardens which bore his name, Agrippa dedicated statues he had purchased on his travels in Asia.²²⁶ The combined effect of the lavish development of temple, baths, canal, lake and park, which together transformed the unkempt Campus Martius into a manicured playground for the Roman people, was one of opulence and splendour. It was made all the more appealing for its accessibility to all classes of society with free admission. For Agrippa it was the manifestation on the grandest scale yet of his personal belief in mens sana in corpore sano, ‘a sound mind in a healthy body’ – that society’s well-being could be improved through a publicly encouraged culture of bathing and art.²²⁷ Whether he was in Rome in June to inaugurate the attractions is not recorded.

Communities across Italy also received benefits from Agrippa’s deep purse. A building erected at Brixia (modern Brescia) and a new basilica at Septempeda (San Severino Marche) bear evidence of his generosity.²²⁸ At Pompeii, graffiti scratched on a painted wall outside the Nucerian Gate, which include the words balneus Agrippae (the rest is illegible), may refer to a bathhouse named after the great commander.²²⁹ Given the thrice consul’s known interest in the pleasures offered by water, it was a fitting name for the establishment.

By 19 BCE Vergil had completed his epic work, the Aeneid. In Book 8, Vergil describes the scene depicted on the shield of Aeneas. He finally accorded Agrippa his due in the poetic account of the Battle of Actium:

Amid the main, two mighty fleets engage

Their brazen beaks, oppos’d with equal rage.

Actium surveys the well-disputed prize;

Leucate’s wat’ry plain with foamy billows fries.

Young Caesar, on the stern, in armor bright,

Here leads the Romans and their gods to fight:

His beamy temples shoot their flames afar,

And o’er his head is hung the Julian star.

Agrippa seconds him, with prosp’rous gales,

And, with propitious gods, his foes assails:

A naval crown, that binds his manly brows.²³⁰

Poetic licence might prevent it from being an accurate depiction of Agrippa’s role, but at least his place in the legend was now assured. Agrippa is known to have written a memoir during his lifetime, like many Roman commanders did.²³¹ Sadly it has completely vanished so we cannot read his own version of the naval battle. Unfortunately also for Vergil, in July of that year he was travelling through Greece and by chance met Augustus’ party in Athens, which was in a fine mood on its return from the east. The 21-year-old Ti. Claudius Nero had installed the pro-Roman Tigranes on the Armenian throne and placed the crown on his head with his own hands; and on the banks of the River Euphrates the signa, along with the surviving Roman prisoners, were handed over to Augustus by Frahâta IV on 12 May – perhaps concluding the covert negotiations originally brokered by Agrippa.²³² Vergil was persuaded to return to Italy with the imperial family. Unexpectedly he fell ill in Megara and when the group reached Brundisium on 21 September, the poet died.²³³ It was a tragic way to end what had been a fantastically triumphant oriental tour for the princeps.

At Agrippa’s home, however, there was reason to be cheerful. Iulia had given birth to a daughter, the couple’s second child. She was named Vipsania Iulia Agrippina (more often referred to as Iulia the Younger).²³⁴