Marcus Agrippa: Right-hand Man of Caesar Augustus (15 page)

A man wishing to advance up the
cursus honorum
was required to actively participate in state religion. In 39 BCE Agrippa was appointed to his first official priesthood (
collegium sacerdotum
). He joined the
Quindecemviri sacris faciendis
,a committee of ten – originally fifteen – men responsible for performing sacrifices and consulting the Sybilline Books (
libri Sybillini
).
¹
These ancient books were the surviving volumes of an original set of nine bought by legendary King Tarquinius Priscus or Tarquinius Superbus whose greed caused the Sybil, a prophetess offering to sell them to him, to destroy three of the documents and charge him the same price as the complete collection.
²
They were kept in the Temple of Iupiter Capitolinus but destroyed in a fire in 82 BCE. Replacements were produced from examples copied from others held by communities throughout Italy. The books were consulted in times of national crisis by the
Quindecemviri
at the request of the Senate, but never made accessible to the general public.
³
Agrippa’s selection to the board was regarded as a great privilege.
⁴

Sex. Pompeius continued his blockade of the Italian ports, restricting the vital supply of grain to the city’s hungry plebs. Angry citizens pelted Caesar with stones when he arrived in the
Forum
to conduct his business and, embarrassingly for him, he had to be rescued by Antonius’ troops. Sextus’ strategy was perfectly calculated to cause most pain to his adversaries, leaving them with little option but to negotiate with him. He had grown rich on the misery he had inflicted on Italy.
⁵
To save face, the triumvirs sought an intermediary to broker a deal. Antonius took the lead by inviting L. Scribonius Libo from Sicily to informal talks. Libo was Sextus’ son-in-law after marrying his daughter, Scribonia, and the discussions were further encouraged by Sextus’ own mother Mucia. Agreement for formal talks was reached and Caesar and Antonius met their nemesis at Misenum on a jetty.
⁶
The result of the frank discussions was the Treaty of Misenum.
⁷
For his signature on it, Sextus drove a hard bargain. For the resumption of grain shipments and withdrawal from positions in Italy, he demanded and received the governorships of Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily with a promise of Achaea in Greece to follow; additionally the consulship
in absentia
of 37 BCE, and a priesthood.
⁸
Furthermore, anyone forced into exile because of their association with Sextus – all except the surviving murderers of Iulius Caesar – could freely return to their homes, though any proscribed persons would only receive back a quarter of their property assets. To ensure the stability of the medium-term future, the consulships were pre-agreed for the next three years: Antonius would
be elected for 38 BCE, Caesar and Sextus for 37 and Ahenobarbus for 36. To celebrate the accord Sextus invited the triumvirs for dinner on board his ship, a fine vessel with six banks of oars (
sexteres
) anchored in the Bay, which he informed his guests, with tongue firmly in cheek, was the only ancestral house left to him.
⁹
His chief officer Menodorus was alleged to have suggested he use the opportunity to sail the ship out to sea and butcher the guests, but Sextus rejected the notion.

Having secured the promise of a new era of peace, Caesar and Antonius dis-embarked and headed back to Rome. Sextus weighed anchor and set sail for Sicily. Shortly after Antonius departed for Athens to prepare for war against the Parthians. Less trusting of Sextus than his colleague, Caesar seems not to have believed in the durability of the peace treaty and began to make preparations for a more local conflict. ‘This year and the one following he spent in constructing ships and gathering and training rowers’, and, calling upon his trusted friend’s proven organizational skills again, ‘entrusted to Agrippa the equipping of the fleet.’
¹⁰

In late spring 39 BCE Caesar left for Gallia Transalpina. Agrippa likely accompanied him.
¹¹
Across the Alps lay the territory newly conquered by Iulius Caesar. In negotiating the reassignment of provinces at Brundisium, Caesar’s seizure of Gallia Narbonensis and Gallia Comata after the death of Calenus had been formally recognized. Gallia Comata – ‘Long Haired Gaul’ – had been largely neglected in terms of its economic and political development in the two decades since Iulius Caesar had conquered it, and the people were restless. That year the tribal confederation living along the western shore rose up, taking advantage of the withdrawal of many of the eleven legions the young Caesar had acquired from Calenus, and the absence of his general Salvidienus from Gaul.

Now his principal military advisor, Caesar, who now began to use the title
Imperator
as his first name, needed Agrippa’s expertise to squash the Aquitani rebels (
map 3
). At the start of 38 BCE Agrippa had to quickly assess the extent of the rebellion and understand the terrain and resources of the insurgents. About Aquitania Agrippa could have referred to Iulius Caesar’s
Commentaries on the Gallic War
. Writing soon after his legate Licinius Crassus had engaged and defeated them in 56 BCE Iulius Caesar says, ‘Aquitania extends from the Garumna River to the Pyrenaean mountains and to that part of the ocean which is near Hispania: it looks between the setting of the sun, and the north star.’
¹²
We have another account of the Romans’ understanding of the region near contemporaneous with Agrippa’s campaign in Strabo’s
Geography
which states the Aquitani were not one tribe, but a federation of smaller clans,

Map 3. Agrippa’s Travels 39–35 BCE.

The great size of the area, the fragmented distribution of the clans and poor road network would make a campaign to pinpoint and quell the rebels difficult.
¹⁴
The Aquitani had no particular love for the Romans. The cause of the insurrection is not disclosed in the extant sources, but Roman rule had yet to bring tangible benefits to the subject peoples. The course and duration of Agrippa’s campaign to reduce the Aquitani is also nowhere documented; neither do we have details about the army at his command. What can be said is that the action seems to have concluded before the end of the year. Appian records simply that the report of the ‘splendid victory over the Gauls of Aquitania, gained under the leadership of Agrippa’ reached Rome at the same time Maecenas, acting as emissary, brought the other good news that Antonius had agreed to support Caesar in a new campaign against Sextus.
¹⁵

His mission in Aquitania and Gallia Comata accomplished, Agrippa may have planned to return to Rome, but at the end of 38 or the start of 37, reports reached him of trouble along the Rhine River.
¹⁶
The nature of the problem and who was involved are again not anywhere disclosed in the sources. It is recorded that raiding by the tribes based on the right bank of the river was commonplace, but Agrippa’s response hints at a more serious issue, perhaps an attempt at transrhenine migration and settlement by one or more tribes as a response to pressure from an aggressor, such as the Suebi. In a remarkable move, and indicative of his fearless hands-on style of leadership, Agrippa boldly led his men across the river to deal with the menace in person. In so doing Dio notes he was only ‘the second of the Romans to cross the Rhine for war’, but his expedition was cut short when he received instructions to ‘finish the work on the fleet and train the men’.
¹⁷

Agrippa’s arrival in Rome in 37 BCE was eagerly awaited. In recognition of his victory over the Aquitani, he was awarded the rare honour of a full triumph.
¹⁸
Agrippa himself was looking forward to assuming his first consulship. Coins issued by a mint travelling with Agrippa’s own troops in Gaul – or perhaps with Caesar’s in northern Italy – during the later part of the previous year seem intentionally designed to build up the anticipation, proudly announcing:

With the profile of a lightly bearded Caesar and the inscription IMP CAES DIVI IVLI F on the obverse, in no uncertain terms Agrippa was proclaiming his unswerving allegiance to ‘Commander Caesar, son of the divine Iulius’ – or Caesar was doing it on his behalf. At the age of 27, he was young for the highest office of state, but already he had proved to be an able civil administrator and military officer. Agrippa’s consulship took effect on New Year’s Day 37 BCE and he shared it with L. Caninius Gallus.
²⁰
About Gallus little is known beyond the
fact that several years later he would be one of the three magistrates responsible for the minting of coins.
²¹
Later in the year Gallus would step down and his curule chair would be filled by a suffect consul, T. Statilius Taurus, who was at the time a known supporter of M. Antonius. Like Agrippa, Taurus was a
novus homo
and a commander with some talent. There was high turnover in many grades of magistracy in the city that year, but Agrippa’s position was unassailable and he served out his full term.
²²
As a consul he was entitled to a complement of twelve lictors, a bodyguard of handpicked men carrying the
fasces
, the distinctive bundle of rods encasing an ax. His time would not be spent only passing laws and making senatorial appointments, however. War was imminent. To fulfil his military mission it was vital that Agrippa retained
consulare imperium
, absolute ‘consular power’, which included the legal right to lead troops to war.

Agrippa was already a politically astute man. Remarkably, writes Dio, Agrippa ‘did not celebrate the triumph, considering it disgraceful for him to make a display when Caesar had fared so poorly, but set to work with great enthusiasm to fit out the fleet’.
²³
The reason was that, while Agrippa was campaigning in Gallia Comata and Germania Magna, Caesar’s prospects had taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Off the coast of Italy his ships had clashed with Sextus’ and he had suffered great losses. With a fleet of ships and a large land army Sextus had grown rich by robbing ships on the high seas and raiding communities on the coast. Murcus had joined him with two legions, 500 archers, 80 ships and a large amount of money. At any time over the last year he could have invaded Italy, which, afflicted with famine and civil strife, was looking for salvation, but in Appian’s assessment, ‘Pompeius lacked wisdom. His idea was not to invade, but only to defend, and this he did until he failed in that also.’
²⁴
Among several grounds for the conflict one
casus belli
was the defection to Caesar of Sextus’ own freedman and naval commander Menas, and the fact that Caesar had not acted in good faith and returned him as was the custom between men of rank.
²⁵
In retaliation, Sextus despatched Menecrates – another freedman – to Italy where he ravaged Volturnum (Castel Volturno, a
colonia
on the road to Casilinum and Capua) and terrorized the region of Campania.
²⁶
Caesar soon discovered that he could not count on either Antonius or Lepidus: both failed to come to his aid when called upon.
²⁷
Sextus trumpeted Antonius’ apparent abandonment of his colleague as evidence that Caesar’s conduct was ‘not right’ and applied himself all the more zealously to attacking his rival in Italy.
²⁸
In Agrippa’s absence, Caesar had appointed C. Calvisius Sabinus to command his fleet with Menas as his deputy.
²⁹
At Cumae Sabinus and Menecrates clashed, during which Caesar lost the larger number of ships, since, Dio explains, he was arrayed against experienced seamen; but Menecrates foolishly engaged Menas and lost his life in the struggle. Sextus’ men were disheartened by the news and, fearing that Caesar, who was now at Rhegium (Reggio Calabria), might cross over to Sicily, made their escape.
³⁰
However, they were spotted by Sabinus, who gave chase. The pursuit proceeded until they reached the promontory of Scyllaeum (near modern
Calabria and about 25km, 15 miles, north of Rhegium). There stormy seas scattered some of Sabinus’ ships and sank others. Taking advantage of the catastrophe Sextus went after Caesar’s warships. Thinking quickly, Caesar lined up his ships side by side with their prows facing out to sea making a direct frontal attack dangerous for Sextus.
³¹
But against fire-bearing missiles and relentless assaults, Caesar could not hold his line for long and he issued the general order to weigh anchor and make for the relative safety of open sea.
³²
The weather again thwarted the triumvir’s plans when the following day, a sudden windstorm blew up.
³³
The result was tremendous loss of sailors and ships, and with it any ambition Caesar had for an invasion of Sicily.
³⁴
At this rate of attrition, Caesar risked being taken out of the war when it had hardly started in earnest. To image conscious Caesar, for Agrippa to hold a triumph – however well deserved – at that moment just would not have looked good.