Marcus Agrippa: Right-hand Man of Caesar Augustus (43 page)

The monument was pregnant with meaning. It was built on the site of Caesar’s
praetorium
tent at the top of the hill north of the city, close to the temple of his favourite god, Apollo.
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The victory complex has been identified and excavated in modern times.
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A three-sided, colonaded
stoa
formed a backdrop for a viewing platform open at the front offering a spectacular panoramic view of the new city and adjacent historic bay beyond. On a ledge below the open side a monumental wall, 62m (203ft) long running south east-north west, displayed the cast bronze beaks from thirty-three to thirty-five ships of different sizes and designs captured from the fleet of M. Antonius and Kleopatra.
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It is tempting to imagine Agrippa being met by a delegation of elected city magistrates, being escorted to the front of the war monument, each official overeager to show their esteemed guest the great attraction. Agrippa would have noted the inscription above the bronze beaks, now beginning to display a green patina from exposure to the weather, which ran across the entire width of the wall. In large, precisely carved capital letters, it read:

There was no mention of Agrippa’s command – politically Actium was Caesar’s victory – but few would forget his crucial contribution; no mention either of the name of the enemy (
hostis
) of the
Res Publica
, but she too would have been known. Perhaps while he was there, Agrippa was taken to visit the shrine of Apollo and the bronze statues of the ass named Nikon and its driver Eutychus, erected in memory of an encounter Caesar had had with them before the battle, and which had since become an attraction for tourists.
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Departing Nikopolis the flotilla continued in its southward journey. Passing the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf Agrippa must have delighted in telling Iulia and his sons the details of the battle and where he and her father were at this or that moment on that pivotal September day. His victory, which decided who would rule the Roman Empire, had also made his career. Coins minted in bronze at Nikopolis bearing the unmistakable profile of Agrippa on the obverse side probably date from the time of this visit or shortly after.
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Ahead lay the great peninsula of the Peloponnese. Agrippa likely stopped at a settlement nestling at the foothills of Mount Panachaikon to which Augustus had restored its ancient name Aroe after the Battle of Actium. On this occasion, Agrippa had come on official business. The city, which had played a key role in helping the Romans secure Greece in 146 BCE, was to become a self-governing colony for veterans honourably discharged from
Legiones
X and XII.
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Under its new name
Colonia Augusta Aroe Patrensis
the city would provide a place for retired soldiers to set up as businessmen and retailers, drawing on the savings and skills they had accumulated during their military careers. Now out of the army these men could also officially marry and raise families and a new generation of Romans, some of whom would themselves serve in the ranks of the legions.

The entourage could have sailed on through the Gulf of Corinth rather than circumnavigating the Peloponnese. A stop at
Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthiensis
–a city whose sympathies had been against Agrippa and Augustus during the Actian War – is possible.
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There the city named a voting tribe after Agrippa, and the decurions erected statues to him as patron of the
colonia
.
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By offering these tokens of respect, any residual bad feeling the city had for him, or he for it, would be diplomatically put aside. His flotilla may have used the Diolkos, an ancient track way or proto-railway used to drag ships overland across the narrowest part of the Isthmus of Corinth just as the young Caesar had done in 31 BCE on his way to intercepting Antonius and Kleopatra.
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He may, however, have visited the
colonia
on his return. Inscriptions found at Gytheion and Tainaros (where Kleopatra had briefly stayed while fleeing to Egypt after Actium) suggest that he took the more circuitous route around the Peloponnese.
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It is not clear if Agrippa visited Argos and Megara, but it is known with certainty that at Sparta one C. Iulius Eurykles – likely a freedman who had been a
protegé
of Augustus – struck coins with Agrippa’s profile and the abbreviated form of his name on them in 16 BCE, the year of the proconsul’s outbound travels.
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One of Eurykles’ relations, C. Iulius Deximachus, is recorded on an inscription in Latin and Greek as
magister
of a new college called the
Agrippiastai
set up in honour of the esteemed proconsul, who may also have become its first patron.
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Agrippa’s party eventually berthed at Epidauros Limera and went inland to visit Epidauros.
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According to legend, Epidauros was the birthplace of Apollo’s son Asklepios (Ascelpius), the god of healing and medicine and his sanctuary lay 8km (5 miles) from the town. Visitors made the trek to offer votive tablets in the hope of being cured of aches, pains and other infirmities.
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Agrippa himself set up a monument here. Though worn, the outlines of the feet of two figures can be seen on the upper surface of the base.
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Pliny records that he suffered with a condition nowadays interpreted as gout:

Frequently in pain, he tried various remedies, but was keen that Augustus did not know about the more bizarre ones he was advised to take which might actually harm him:

Risky as the treatment may have been, it appears to have worked – even if only providing Agrippa temporary respite – as vinegar is known to have have antimycobacterial properties and to reduce itching.
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At the risk of losing the use of his limbs he was still more concerned about not becoming an embarrassment to his friend as an invalid. The monument he set up at Epidauros may be directly connected with his search for a cure for his ailment. Having already tried all manner of medical cures, there was no harm in appealing for divine intervention as well.

The party of distinguished travellers now sailed to Peiraeius (Piraeus) in Achaea and proceeded to Athens. The city had been host to Agrippa on his last oriental trip, and here he found friends and admirers. He too showed the city his philanthropic side. He paid for a magnificent new
odeion
, a covered theatre building for recitations of poetic and historical works as well as musical performances.
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He may have intended it to be a replacement for the
odeion
of Athens’ other great benefactor Perikles, which had been located next to the Theatre of Dionysus on the southern slope of the Acropolis. The new building (
fig. 10
) stood in the centre of the ancient
agora
, the commercial and political heart of the city, and when finished in around 15 BCE its two storey design dominated the public space much like his edifices did on the
Campus Martius
.
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True to Agrippa’s aesthetic, it combined practicality with restrained elegance. It was surrounded on three sides by a subterranean covered passageway (
cryptoporticus
) pierced with openings to provide light and air (
fig. 11
). Above it, a covered
stoa
with elegant columns of the Corinthian order along the open side offered a place for visitors to perambulate away from the hot daytime sun, or rain at other times. Inside there was tiered seating with unobstructed views of the raised stage and marble-paved
orchestra
for 1,000–1,200 concert-goers. They entered from the south side of the
odeion
, passing through a rectangular vestibule (
plate 35
), while the performers had access to the stage via a porticoed entrance on the north. Again Agrippa’s architect pushed the limits of building technology and materials. Just as at the
Diribitorium
in Rome, the ceiling spanning 25m (82ft) across the main hall was supported only at the ends.
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Another public building, a covered hall for recitations called the
Agrippeion
, was erected in the Kerameikos district of the city, located just northwest of the Acropolis, presumably at his expense or named after him by an admirer.
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Figure 10. Agrippa commissioned a new concert hall for music and literary performances in Athens. It was state-of-the-art design in the first century BCE.

Figure 11. When completed the Odeion of Agrippa dominated the Agora in central Athens both in height and footprint and could seat an audience of 1,000–1,200 spectators.

The Athenians probably commemorated his first visit with a statue.
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This time, with Agrippa having
imperium
over this senatorial province, they would show their affection on a much grander scale. Opposite the Temple of Athena Nike and in front of the Propyleion on the Acropolis with its iconic Parthenon, an image of Agrippa was erected on top of an existing 8.9m (29.2ft) high tower of blocks of bluish-grey, white-veined Hymettian marble, using pseudo-isodomic masonry, originally erected by a king of Pergamon.
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It was one of the first monuments anyone walking up the stairs to the Acropolis would see, and it can still be seen today. Having erased the original royal inscription, a new one was written in Greek from the
demos
of Athens, ‘The People [dedicate this] to Markos Agrippa, son of Leukios, three times consul and benefactor (
ευεργέτης
).’
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From Athens, Agrippa’s party hopped from port to port, taking in the sights as they went. He may have stopped at Delphinium in northeast Attica and visited the famous oracle with its sacred spring in Oropos.
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Of significance to him was the cult shrine to the Greek chthonic hero Amphiaraos. He was associated with Asklepios and pilgrims went there to seek divine knowledge and healing. Brief sojourns on the islands of Andros, Delos and Mytilene are likely based on the finds of inscriptions from statues dedicated to him or his wife there.
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Having crossed the breadth of the Aegean Sea without incident, they reached the Dardanelles, likely disembarking at Sestos, where an inscription indicates statues were erected to him and his wife together.
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He owned the entire Thracian Cheronese – how he came to be owner of what is understood to have been public land (
ager publicus
) is not preserved in the surviving records.
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The couple may have spent some time relaxing on the island for the winter before crossing the Hellespont to the northern Troad on the mainland of Asia (the Anatolia of modern Turkey), perhaps in the New Year, 15 BCE. Agrippa may also have been involved with the foundation of the new
Colonia Alexandria Augusta Troadis
(modern Eski Stambul in Turkey) on the site of Antigonia Troas by the Scamander River.
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Strabo remarks that ‘indeed the city endured and grew, and at present it not only has received a colony of Romans, but is one of the notable cities of the world’.
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