Marcus Agrippa: Right-hand Man of Caesar Augustus (30 page)

Map 10. Agrippa’s Travels, 30–24 BCE.

Perhaps at the subtle urging of Agrippa, the Senate considered awards of honours for Caesar, while he was making the return journey to Italy. They concurred and granted him a full triumph for his victory over Kleopatra in the Actian War, and another for beating the Egyptians in the Alexandrian War.
¹³
The Senate also consented to arches (
iani
) adorned with trophies being erected at Brundisium where he entered Italy, and in the
Forum Romanum
, Rome – taking care not to mention that Roman lives had been extinguished in their defence on Antonius’ side.
¹⁴
The Senate further decreed that the foundation slab of the shrine of Iulius Caesar should be adorned with the beaks of the ships captured at Actium and that a festival should be held every four years in honour of his heir; that there should also be a general thanksgiving on his birthday – 23 September – and on the anniversary of the announcement of his victory; and that when he entered the City of Rome the Vestal Virgins, the Conscript Fathers and the people with their wives and children should go out to greet him.
¹⁵
Additionally there were provisions for crowns (the Roman equivalent of medals), statues, other lesser public honours and prayers.
¹⁶
In their prayers on behalf of the Senate and People, the priests and priestesses were required to pray for him likewise, and at all banquets, public and private, everyone was obliged to pour a libation to him.
¹⁷

Particularly important was the requirement for the removal of M. Antonius’ statues and any memorials connected with him.
¹⁸
In at least one known case the face of a statue of Antonius was re-carved to become that of Agrippa (
plate 24
). Antonius was declared
damnatio memoriae
, a man whose name and memory were expunged from the roster of Roman citizens – in effect it was as though he had never existed.
¹⁹
His birthday – 14 January – was designated
dies nefastus
, an accursed day on which public business could not be conducted, and surviving and future males of
gens Antonia
were banned from using the name Marcus. The day on which the news of Antonius’ death reached Rome happened to be while M. Tullius Cicero, son of the famous orator, was serving his term as suffect consul. As Antonius had been a principal advocate for his father’s execution many saw divine justice at work.
²⁰
The day on which Alexandria was captured was declared
dies fastus
, a lucky day on which business should be encouraged, and, as a reminder of their treachery, the Egyptian city’s population were instructed to take this date as ‘Year 0’ for their reckoning of time.
²¹

Most significant was the political award of tribunician power (
tribunicia potestas
) to Caesar for life. Uniquely for a tribune of the people, he was empowered to aid those who called upon him for help both within the
pomerium
and outside up to a distance of one mile.
²²
Recognizing his wisdom, Caesar was appointed to judge appeal cases, and in all the courts he presided over his vote was to be cast as ‘Athena’s vote’, the deciding ballot.
²³
Yet more honours were heaped upon him, including the naming of one of the voting tribes as Julian, that he should wear the triumphator’s crown on all public occasions, and others, but finally that he could choose priests in whatever number and frequency he wished.
²⁴
Caesar willingly accepted all but a few of the honours, though he expressly requested that the proposal requiring that the whole population of the city should go out to meet him on his arrival should not be put into effect.
²⁵

The one honour pleasing Caesar above all others was the decree which required the doors of the Temple of Ianus to be closed. The act of shutting the doors of the god with two faces on 11 January was to advertise to the world that all wars had ceased – an exceedingly rare occurrence.
²⁶
(Dio points out that they still were fighting along the Rhine, among the hills of northern Spain and elsewhere, yet the Romans did not consider that they were engaged in war.) Associated with this, Caesar also appreciated receiving the honour of performing the
augurium salutis
, a particular kind of augury observed on that day of each year on which no Roman army was marching to war, or was preparing itself against an enemy, or with whom it was already fighting a battle.
²⁷

Communicating news of the victory at Actium to the widest number of people were silver coins specially struck in Brundisium and Rome with portraits of Imperator Caesar
Divi filius
on the obverse, and images of a naval war trophy (
plate 22
) or winged Victory (
plate 23
) standing on a ship’s prow on the reverse.
²⁸
The exquisite quality of the images on these pieces suggests Caesar insisted that only the best die makers were employed on the project. Agrippa’s name does not appear on any of these coins, but he was not overlooked in this frenzy of award giving. After sacrifices were offered in gratitude for his safe return ‘Caesar bestowed eulogies and honours upon his deputies, as was customary, and to Agrippa he further granted, among other distinctions, a flag (
vexillum
) in honour of his naval victory’.
²⁹
It was an extraordinary public honour. The choice of a vividly coloured pennant – blue to signify the sea – may have been determined by the fact that Agrippa had already received the
corona navalis
, the golden crown surmounted with ships’ beaks.
³⁰
From now on everytime Agrippa travelled by ship it would fly this unmistakable ensign.

Other honours were bestowed on Caesar’s admiral, but Dio does not specify what they were.
³¹
It is surmised that, around this time, four columns incorporating the bronze beaks of captured warships were erected in Rome in honour of Caesar and Agrippa.
³²
A share of the treasure trove removed from Egypt may have been given to him. He may also have received an estate in Egypt.
³³
Valuable property was given to Agrippa in Rome. Caesar gave the house of M. Antonius on the Palatinus Hill jointly to Agrippa and Messalla – probably the
Domus Rostrata
, the house grotesquely decorated with sunken ships’ beaks – which he had previously taken from Pompeius Magnus.
³⁴
Of greater significance, Agrippa may have been a direct beneficiary of the
Lex Saenia
sponsored by suffect consul L. Saenius and enacted in 30 BCE, which was intended to increase the number of patrician families – needed to run government institutions – after its decimation during the Civil Wars.
³⁵
This law, endorsed by
lex curiata
, adlected chosen plebians, raising them to patrician status – a legal instrument which would soon prove to be very useful.
³⁶

During the year, Caesar assumed the acclamatory honour
imperator
as an official title.
³⁷
The high point of the year was Caesar’s triumph. From 13 until 15 August he celebrated not one, but three, one after the other.
³⁸
The first day celebrated the victories of 35 BCE in Illyricum; the achievement of C. Carrinas, who had squashed a revolt of the Morini in Belgica and completed a punitive campaign against the Suebi who had crossed the Rhine and raided into Gallia Comata, was also recognized at the same time.
³⁹
Normally, leading the procession and displayed as a war trophies were the high value captives bound in chains and displayed on floats with explanatory placards. Following them was Caesar, his face and arms daubed in purple dye. Turning the occasion into a family affair, his nephew M. Claudius Marcellus and oldest stepson Ti. Claudius Nero rode the flanking horses, and his daughter Iulia and youngest stepson Nero Claudius Drusus stood with him in the triumphator’s chariot.
⁴⁰
On the second day the Actian War was celebrated. Agrippa undoubtedly took part on both days of celebrations, perhaps walking in the military procession which followed behind Caesar’s chariot. The final day was by far the most spectacular of the three.
⁴²
This marked the conquest of Egypt a little over a year after the actual event. In the absence of the living queen, an effigy of the dead Kleopatra was carried on a couch. Her surviving children – the 10-year-old twins Alexander Helios and Kleopatra Selene II and 6-year-old Ptolemaeus Philadelphus – however, were part of the display and walked in the vanguard with other enchained captives and heaped up war spoils.
⁴³
Then followed Caesar in his chariot and after him his fellow-consul Sex. Apuleius and the other magistrates, along with the senators who had participated in the victory.
⁴⁴
Since Agrippa was in Rome during the Egyptian campaign, he was probably not a participant but had a place of honour amidst the cheering audience. On 18 August Caesar dedicated the new Temple of Iulius Caesar and the newly renovated
Curia Iulia
.
⁴⁵
These buildings reinforced his support of the emerging cult of Caesar – deified by decree of the Senate thirteen years earlier – and were subtle public declarations of the connection between the divine Iulius and himself as his mortal heir.
⁴⁶
On 28 August a statue of Victoria, the angelic winged goddess of victory, was erected inside the new Senate House. Located in the
Forum Romanum
, these buildings were proof of the younger Caesar’s full commitment to the ancient city and its future.
⁴⁷

With the wealth of Egypt in his possession Caesar paid off his own debts and cancelled the obligations on the treasury prior to 2 September 31 BCE.
⁴⁸
To each citizen, adult or child, he gave 400
sestertii
.
⁴⁹
So much gold bullion and coin was brought to the city, in fact, that the economic impact was inflationary – the prices of basic commodities rose and the interest rate charged on loans spiked at 12 per cent.
⁵⁰
The result of the visual spectacular and distribution of largesse was that, in Dio’s words, ‘the Romans forgot all their unpleasant experiences and viewed his triumph with pleasure, quite as if the vanquished had all been foreigners.’
⁵¹

In January 28 BCE Agrippa was sworn in as consul for the second time; the other consul, for the sixth time, was again Caesar, and both men served their full terms.
⁵²
Caesar showed his own loyalty to his friend ‘for he always paid exceptional honour to Agrippa’.
⁵³
Specifically,

Of the twenty-four
fasces
given to Caesar as consul up to 29 BCE, Agrippa now received half of them, demonstrating publicly that he considered the two consuls were of equal status. Furthermore he provided Agrippa with a tent similar in size and design to his own so that when they were campaigning together they would be seen as equal, and the watchword was to be given out by both of them from that time on.
⁵⁵

To bind the two men closer yet, a political marriage was arranged. The status of Agrippa’s marriage to Caecilia Attica, daughter of the late Atticus, is unknown – the sources are silent about her. If he was still married to Attica, the couple now divorced. In the context of the new honours, Dio remarks that Agrippa married Claudia Marcella (Marcella the Elder), a public sign that he was admitted as a welcome member of the House of Caesar.
⁵⁶
As Claudia Marcella was the daughter of Octavia, sister of Claudius Marcellus, thus Agrippa was marrying Caesar’s niece. According to Suetonius they had one child, a daughter named Vipsania Marcella.
⁵⁷
One of Agrippa’s daughters would marry P. Quinctilius Varus, a young man of Cremona from an impoverished patrician clan who was working to improve his own and his family’s fortunes. The evidence is not clear if the daughter was from the marriage to Caecilia Attica or Claudia Marcella. It remains one of history’s unsolved mysteries. The marriage to his daughter – no later than 25 BCE – would make Varus his son-in-law.
⁵⁸

Further adding prestige to Agrippa’s name and raising his social standing was a new priesthood.
⁵⁹
Agrippa is recorded as having entered the college of the
Fratres Arvales
this year, a position likely made at Caesar’s request since he had the privilege of appointing priests at his pleasure.
⁶⁰
The
Fratres Arvales
was a college of twelve members elected for life. The religious order’s duty was to offer an annual sacrifice for the fertility of the fields.
⁶¹
The distinguished members of the
collegiums
for 29 BCE were Caesar, Messala and Scribonius Libo.
⁶²
The appointment demonstrated he had the full approval of his peers. Agrippa was an ordinary member on his initiation, but he could look forward to promotion to priestly
flamen
or
praetor
, as positions were elected annually, or as they became vacant through the death of a member. He would have been intricately involved in organizing the annual three-day festival of the archaic earth goddess Dea Dia in May.
⁶³
The rite usually took place in the
magister
’s – probably Caesar’s – house.
⁶⁴
As his badge of office, Agrippa wore a chaplet of ears of corn fastened to his head by a white band.
⁶⁵
When the sun rose on the morning of the first day, fruits and incense were offered with prayers to the goddess. After the banquet which followed, the guests were handed gifts and garlands. On the second day, four boys – all sons of senators – each wearing a wreath of corn upon his head, a white fillet and the
toga praetexta
, formed a chorus, who sang the song of the
Fratres Arvales
. The lyrics of this hymn were in a dialect of Latin so ancient that even the Romans of Agrippa’s time struggled to understand them.
⁶⁶
In the temple of the Dea Dia, there was a ritual dance, while in her grove, located about five miles south of the city, a purification rite took place. There were elections for the officers of the
collegium
for the next year, followed by races and a banquet. On the third and final day, ritual prayers were offered and solemn oaths were made to the goddess. Agrippa’s personal feelings about these religious offices are not recorded. The extant sources say very little about his spiritual life, beyond his demonstrated disdain for astrologers and charlatans, but his acceptance of a place in the Arval Brotherhood indicates he accepted traditional state religion, regardless of whether or not he actually believed in the arcane rituals.