Marcus Agrippa: Right-hand Man of Caesar Augustus (47 page)

In the days which followed omens and portents were seen across the city. With a chronicler’s attention to the minutiae of the absurd, Dio writes:

More ominously, months after Agrippa’s death,

Accepting them uncritically as facts, he adds ‘these were the events connected with Agrippa’s death’.
²⁶

A few days after the funeral, attention turned to the matter of Agrippa’s will and the disbursement of his estate. By the standards of his time – indeed of any age – Agrippa had been fabulously wealthy. The vast park he had created in the
Campus Martius
and the baths which bore his name he bequeathed to the Roman people.
²⁷
To generate income to pay for continued free public access to them and for their upkeep, Agrippa passed most of his private estates – in Egypt and Sicily, including the entire Thracian Chersonese – to Augustus.
²⁸
This would continue the policy borne of his firm belief in the epithet ‘sound mind in sound body’. Augustus, however, promptly made his inheritance public land (
ager publicus
) and distributed to each citizen 400
sestertii
, making it known that Agrippa had ordered the distribution of cash.
²⁹
Augustus also inherited his friend’s household
familia
of slaves – men like Acastus, Castor, Cozmus, Philargrus, Philotimus, Servius and Zoilus – who assumed the
cognomen
Agrippianus and, on being freed by the
princeps
, could pass on the name to their children.
³⁰
The large company of slaves, which Agrippa had set up and organized to operate and maintain the public water works, such as the
Aqua Virgo
and the urban fountains, was also inherited by Augustus, who now made them property of the state.
³¹

Figure 12. Agrippa raised a monument intending his remains to be interred there. Fragments of it survived for Piranesi to drawn them in the eighteenth century.

Figure 13. Agrippa’s ashes were finally deposited in the Mausoleum of Augustus, alongside those of Marcellus, Octavia and Drusus the Elder. (Reconstruction by the author after G. Gatti and H. von Hesburg).

In the weeks and months which followed the funeral, Augustus was keen to keep alive the name of his departed friend. A series of silver coins were minted by official moneyer (
triumvir monetalis
) Cossus Cornelius Lentulus. One
denarius
shows Agrippa in profile facing right wearing a crown (
corona navalis
) with towers and a warship’s beak at the front.
³²
Another depicts a pedestal ornamented with ships’ beaks upon which Agrippa, wearing a crested helmet while bearing a military trophy over his left shoulder, rides a horse.
³³
Yet another (
plate 38
) shows a togate Augustus crowning a semi-naked Agrippa – who holds a small figurine of Victory in the palm of his right hand – with a star.
³⁴
He also oversaw gladiatorial games in Agrippa’s name – it was common practice for sons to celebrate the spirit of their deceased fathers, but all the more touching that here a father was commemorating his son-in-law in this way.
³⁵
He insisted that time honoured rites and festivals should be held as normal and that they be attended by all classes, though often he did not take part in person – and none of the prominent men wished to attend.
³⁶
Meanwhile, across from the Mausoleum, the foundations of the
Ara Pacis
were now being laid.
³⁷
Its designer conceived it as an altar on a raised podium surrounded by a wall upon the outside of which life-size images of members of Augustus’ household and officials of the Roman state would be seen attending a religious ceremony – the very rite that would be held at the altar within the enclosure. He received instructions that Agrippa was still to be included in this depiction: he might be gone, but he would not be forgotten. The challenge for the artist now was how to represent the dead man in a procession of the living.

As aedile Agrippa had seized the opportunity to do substantive good by his city. He proved so effective in that role that Augustus had made him ‘curator for life’, becoming the key driver in transforming Rome into a cosmopolis worthy of its place as the capital of the world empire. His initiatives to beautify the urban landscape and overhaul its basic water supply and sanitation services, supported by a professional staff to operate and maintain them, were continued by Augustus when, in 12 BCE, he assumed the role of
curator
from Agrippa. Augustus had not been idle. He had been in charge of roads since 20 BCE. On account of their popularity, the firemen (
vigiles
) were made full-time and paid from his own purse in 6 CE.
³⁸
The division of the city into fourteen districts in 7 BCE meant these different public services could be better organized and administered. Modelled after Agrippa’s example, the posts (
curatores
) for managing the different types of infrastructure – aqueducts, public buildings and places, roads and Tiber flood prevention – were made permanent.
³⁹
Curatores
were recruited from ex-praetors by Augustus as the head
curator
in the expectation that they would became experts in their respective areas from holding their positions for extended tenures, and given lictors in recognition of their status. They sat on boards of appointed members charged with prioritizing projects, managing what were often substantial budgets, supervising their bureaucracies and teams of slave workers, and sharing best practices.

Work on Agrippa’s great Map of the World was also completed (
map 18
). It had become an important project to him in his final years, so much so that he had provided in his will for a colonnaded portico to be constructed in the western quadrant of the
Campus Martius
to properly display it to the public.
⁴⁰
His sister Polla broke ground for the building, but she herself died before it was finished.
⁴¹
Augustus took on the project after 7 BCE, seeing it through to completion.
⁴²
When inaugurated it was popularly known as the
Porticus Vispania
and for years it attracted the curiosity of visitors and intellectuals, like Strabo and Pliny the Elder, itself becoming a landmark for people to get their bearings by.
⁴³

The ramifications of Agrippa’s death were felt far from Rome too. When news of Agrippa’s demise reached Iudaea in 12 BCE, a distraught Herodes immediately set off for Rome.
⁴⁴
The loss of his friend was almost as great for him as it was for Augustus. In the claustrophobic, shifting world of oriental politics, the two men had found friendship beyond the diplomatic. Agrippa had been someone in whom the king could confide outside of the circle of his fawning ministers and sycophants. Through him he had an ally to influence Augustus. Agrippa had proved to be an unexpected champion and vigilant defender of Jewish rights. Having paid his respects, he returned to his kingdom. There Herodes renamed his newly constructed coastal city of Anthedon as Agrippias.
⁴⁵
Two years later, Herodes named his new born grandson M. Iulius Agrippa – the future Agrippa I, king of Iudaea.
⁴⁶
Herodes himself died in 4 BCE, aged 69.

Map 18. Agrippa’s
Orbis Terrarum
reconstructed as a map.

Across the empire cities celebrated their connections with the famous Roman, especially those in regions where he had visited in person. At Mytilene, which Agrippa had chosen as his base of operations for both of his oriental missions, people erected many inscriptions and statues in his honour.
⁴⁷
On Kos games were instituted in his name and held regularly.
⁴⁸
Delighted by the visit of their high-status Roman guest to their city, the administration of Ephesus commemorated it by having the names of both Agrippa and Iulia carved on the attic of the southern entrance way into the new
agora
they were building (
plate 36
) along with statues of them placed on the top.
⁴⁹
The cities of Apameia in Phrygia, Alabanda in Caria, Amisos in Pontus, Agrippia-Phanagoria on the Bosporus, Zecca in the Peloponnese, Knossos in Crete and Cyrene issued coins independently bearing the portrait of the proconsul.
⁵⁰
For restoring its liberty, the city of Kyzikos claimed Agrippa as its official founder.
⁵¹

In a few places Agrippa achieved near cult status, but not a total apotheosis. Romans worshipped minor gods – the
Lares
– who were an amalgam of ancestors, heroes and spirits of the hearth.
⁵²
After 7 BCE a festival was dedicated to the
Lares Augusti
on 1 May and a new celebration of the sacred spirit of the imperial house (
Genius Augusti
) was held on 1 August – conveniently the first day on which new Roman magistrates took up their offices and a highly auspicious date for Augustus as it was the anniversary of his victory at Alexandria. Statues of the
Genius Augusti
were placed between the figurines of the
Lares
in the shrines which stood at road intersections (
compitalia
).
⁵³
Agrippa was associated with the worship of these Augustan
Lares
.
⁵⁴
On Lesbos, there is evidence of veneration of Agrippa as the ‘benefactor’, which seems to have begun even while he was still alive.
⁵⁵
His death only added to the spiritual appeal and on the island devotees at Mytilene erected inscriptions declaring him the ‘saviour god’.
⁵⁶
The Greek word they used did not necessarily convey the same godhead as the Latin
divus
, but it certainly implied a status greater than a mere mortal man.
⁵⁷
Evidence for a cult of Agrippa has been found at Kos, Samos, Smyrna, Sparta, Thessaly and possibly at Lagina in Caria.
⁵⁸

Augustus may have paid homage to M. Agrippa in the later years of his reign, possibly to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of his passing.
⁵⁹
One of the most commonly found Roman coins is a bronze
as
(
plate 39
) with an unmistakable profile of Agrippa wearing his combined
corona muralis
and
navalis
and a fixed gaze to the left. The legend in bold letters around it is the familiar ‘M AGRIPPA L F COS III’. On the reverse stands the semi-naked god Neptunus draped in a cloak, holding a trident in his left hand and a dolphin in the right – a reference to the naval victories at Mylae, Naulochus and Actium. It was clearly designed to make an impression in the hand. When newly minted this would have been an impressive medallion-like piece of gleaming yellow-brown alloy. Even green with patina the high relief, three dimensionality of the portrait makes the coin popular amongst modern collectors. The sheer number of these coins means they circulated in people’s small change for centuries, keeping alive the memory of M. Agrippa.