Marcus Agrippa: Right-hand Man of Caesar Augustus (37 page)
Read Marcus Agrippa: Right-hand Man of Caesar Augustus Online
Authors: Lindsay Powell
Tags: #Bisac Code 1: HIS002000, #HISTORY / Ancient / General / BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Military, #Bisac Code 2: BIO008000 Bisac Code 3: HIS027000
Roman Law required a widow to wait for a period of ten months to properly mourn her loss before remarrying, but since M. Claudius Marcellus’ death fully two years had passed. The marriage to Agrippa was timely, if not overdue. Surprisingly, it appears Augustus did not attend the wedding in person, preferring instead to depart for the East, taking Livia, her two sons, and Quinctilius Varus with him.
89
Nothing survives in the ancient sources to tell us about the wedding, which took place in Rome. What Agrippa felt about his new wife is not recorded. She was young, attractive, educated, feisty and the daughter of his best friend, which must have appealed to him on several levels. There is nothing to suggest Agrippa approached his marriage with any other intention that to make it successful.
It may have been during that year Agrippa perhaps commissioned the building of new residences for himself and his bride. One is postulated as located in Rome, the other a summer home on the Bay of Naples. It must be said that the identity of the properties is founded largely on informed guesswork based on location and interior decoration. If the so-called Villa under the Farnesina in Rome, which has long been ascribed to him, was indeed his, its site was chosen strategically, overlooking the
Pons Agrippae
in the
Trans Tiberim
with commanding views of the
Campus Martius
and its monumental edifices.
90
The painted walls, which have since been uncovered, reveal the changing tastes in interior design during the Augustan Age.
91
One room is decorated with murals in what art historians call the Second Style, known for its picture-window effect evoking the world outside. While the smooth plaster was still wet, the painter used his brush to apply paint made of organic and inorganic pigments bound with egg white; they impregnated themselves into the surface and to this day retain their original colour and brightness.
92
The ancient artist’s brushes created fantastic shallow
trompe l’oeuil
illusions of architectural backdrops of columns, theatrical masks and drapes or Italianate landscapes and populated them with plants, people, birds and animals accurately painted from real life and which still delight modern visitors with their vivacity. The idea was to bring a tamed version of the outside world into the controlled realm of the home.
In contrast the wall paintings of ‘Cubiculum B’ are in the so-called Third Style, noted for its rejection of the recreation of natural vistas in favour of the restrained elegance of plainer lines representing tall slender Ionic columns set upon plinths, between panels of a bold single colour – here in scarlet red – in the centre of which were whimsical
faux
stucco details or impressionistic masterpieces.
93
Nearby is delightful ‘Cubiculum E’ with off-white as its dominant ground colour, accented with dividing lines in red-brown and green hues. Among the finely draughted painted figures are the goddess Diana/Selene and, in the upper register, statuary atop patinated candelabra and carved balustrades. The overall effect was sophisticated, strong on detail, yet understated and executed to the highest standards – perhaps reflecting Agrippa’s own personality.
To the south of Rome, 241km (150 miles) away in fashionable Campania, another villa is associated with Agrippa at Boscotrecase. Smothered by the ash of Vesuvius during the eruption of 79 CE, the villa has since been excavated and studied.
94
Its connection with Agrippa is tentative and based only on the close similarity of the style and execution of paintings at this site with the Villa under the Farnesina in Rome.
95
Its ground plan follows the traditional two-part design of homes popular in the Bay of Naples. The first wing comprised of a suite of public rooms – thirteen in all – around a central
atrium
, which was typically open to the sky. An adjoining wing of private rooms – so far ten have been explored – was arranged around a four-sided peristyle with a formal garden at its centre. The columns of the colonnade were brick covered with plaster while the walls of the peristyle were adorned with paintings of columns in the Second Style, creating the illusion of a double portico. The most important rooms were located here and included the family’s bedrooms whose walls were painted in the latest Third Style.
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One of these, called ‘Cubiculum 15’ by archaeologists, but also referred to as the ‘black room’, opens off the eastern end of the wing.
97
From a deep red frieze running along the base of the wall, a series of slender white columns rise above a
faux
dado rail against a solid charcoal-black background, originally with a deep glossy finish. Atop these columns, the ancient master painter has added candelabra, pavilions, swans and tripods, all connected by a narrow cornice that runs around the entire room, in places appearing to be folded back slightly to add subtle three dimensionality. The dark walls contrast with the white floor, in the centre of which is a mosaic with a black geometric pattern. In the next room, ‘Cubiculum 16’, the predominant colour is red above a black base.
98
Delicate flowers and tendrils bisect the uppermost panels, while borders frame the large plain panels beneath. Each of the four walls in this room has a large centre panel painted in white on which are depicted in impressionistic style bucolic idyls of scenes from mythology – in one, the cyclops Polyphemus stands against a rock in the shadow of a tall tree as he tends his flock, while in another Perseus is shown flying to rescue Andromeda from an approaching sea monster. The translucency of the paint and the quick but masterful stroke of the painter’s brush create astonishing images not achieved again until the eighteenth century. Across the corridor is ‘Cubiculum 20’, whose largely white panels, populated by small birds and tinier flowers, rise above a red base. Yet, tantalizingly the style of its decoration echoes Pliny’s comment about Agrippa’s restrained artistic taste.
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These rooms only hint at the opulence of the property and its luxurious furnishings in its heyday. The architect of the house made the very best of the location. The west wing opened onto a long south-facing terrace, which must once have had magnificent and uninterrupted views over the Bay below, and let in sea-breezes to refresh the house and its occupants – though if Agrippa ever enjoyed its delights is not recorded.
Now in charge of the city of Rome, Agrippa quickly applied his mind to dealing with the matters of law and order that Augustus had either failed or refused to deal with.
100
His first priority was reclaiming the streets from the rioters. In this he was successful. When another bitter dispute broke out, this time over the election of a junior prefect (
praefectus urbi feriarum Latinarum causa
) who represented the consuls during the Latin Festival held in the Alban Hills in January, he was unable to resolve the matter by normal means. Exasperated he took the extreme measure of simply suspending the office for the entire year. In a similar vein, ever suspicious of the corrosive influence of eastern ‘mystic’ cults on public morale, Agrippa banned the practice of Egyptian rites from being performed within a mile of the city, just as he had done with astrologers and charlatans back in 34 BCE.
101
By the late spring of 20 BCE Iulia was heavy with child. Between 14 August and 13 or 23 September she finally gave birth to a baby boy. On the seventh day after the boy’s birth, a lustration ceremony was held and Agrippa formally recognized him as his son. He named him C. (Vipsanius) Agrippa – he probably chose the
praenomen
Caius in honour of his best friend. Young Caius was Augustus’ first grandson and it must have been with great joy that he received the news delivered by official courier to his residence Syria. At Augustus’ or Agrippa’s own instigation, the Senate decreed that a sacrifice and prayers were to be held annually in honour of the boy on his birthday and to be paid for with public funds.
102
Also that year a new monument was unveiled in the
Forum Romanum
between the
Rostra
and the Temple of Saturn.
103
Called the ‘golden milestone’ (
miliarium aureum
) it was a column of gilded bronze (or marble clad in gilt bronze) which listed all the major cities and their distances from Rome.
104
Romans regarded it as the starting point from which all the main roads fanned out. While Augustus had been appointed superintendent of the road system (
cura viarum
) of Rome and its environs in 20 BCE he was not actually in the city and it may have been Agrippa who inaugurated the marker. It was likely by this time he had been com-missioned by Augustus to prepare a map of the known world (
orbis terrarum
).
105
Agrippa was one of the most travelled men of his age and that uniquely qualified him to make critical observations on reports of the diverse terrains, peoples, cities of the Roman world and distances between them. As a military man he would, like other commanders, have had access to maps and itineraries, which he used on campaign and annotated, creating new ones of his own as new information became available.
106
A project to compile and present a unified map had been commissioned when Iulius Caesar and M. Antonius were consuls in 44 BCE; four Greeks had been assigned to carry out the work and twenty years later it was not yet complete.
107
Strabo, who saw the finished representation in 7 BCE, observed:
It is the sea more than anything else that defines the contours of the land and gives it its shape, by forming gulfs, deep seas, straits, and likewise isthmuses, peninsulas, and promontories; but both the rivers and the mountains assist the seas herein. It is through such natural features that we gain a clear conception of continents, nations, favourable positions of cities, and all the other diversified details with which our geographical map is filled. And among these details are the multitudes of islands scattered both in the open seas and along the whole seaboard. And since different places exhibit different good and bad attributes, as also the advantages and inconveniences that result therefrom, some due to nature and others resulting from human design, the geographer should mention those that are due to nature.
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With the benefit of another half century of explorations by Roman armies and merchants Pliny the Elder, who cites Agrippa – probably the
commentarii
which accompanied the map – as a source of geographical information for his own work on thirty occasions, expressed his exasperation at errors in it, as here where he remarks about underestimates of distances in the Iberian peninsula:
M. Agrippa has also stated the whole length of this province to be 475 miles, and its breadth 257; but this was at a time when its boundaries extended to Carthago, a circumstance which has often caused great errors in calculations; which are generally the result either of changes effected in the limits of provinces, or of the fact that in the reckoning of distances the length of the miles has been arbitrarily increased or diminished. In some parts too the sea has been long making encroachments upon the land, and in others again the shores have advanced; while the course of rivers in this place has become more serpentine, in that more direct. And then, besides, some writers begin their measurements at one place, and some at another, and so proceed in different directions; and hence the result is, that no two accounts agree.
Who is there that can entertain the belief that Agrippa, a man of such extraordinary diligence, and one who bestowed so much care on his subject, when he proposed to place before the eyes of the world a survey of that world, could be guilty of such a mistake as this, and that too when seconded by the late emperor the divine Augustus? For it was that emperor who completed the Portico which had been begun by his sister, and in which the survey was to be kept, in conformity with the plan and descriptions of M. Agrippa.
109
Modern attempts at a reconstruction of Agrippa’s
orbis terrarum
propose that the map was either circular in design (fig. 18) – with Rome at the centre – or longitudinal (like the map of Eratosthenes) or that it was not a map at all but a gazetteer of places and distances (
fig. 6
).
110
In 19 BCE reports arrived from the Gallic provinces of trouble there. The
Galli
were restless, perhaps even in open revolt – Dio says they were quarrelling amongst themselves, without specifying who – and the situation was made worse by raids by Germanic war bands from the Rhineland.
111
The
legatus
in the region evidently could not contain the unrest himself with the forces at his disposal and, perhaps fearing it might spread, must have written to Rome for help. Agrippa felt obliged to go there in person to deal with it. He had his own
imperium
and was acting in his usual hands-on style to deal with a crisis.
112
Details about Agrippa’s movements in the region are frustratingly sparse. Speed was of the essence. On the outbound journey he may have taken the Alpine road,
Via Cottia per Alpem
(
map 13
). Before it was made into a road, Hannibal Barca had marched his army and his elephants along this route, a journey that took fifteen days.
113
Iulius Caesar, considering this the shortest route, took just six days to reach the Rhône from the Italian foothills.
114
It crossed through the Roman protectorate of the Alpes Cottiae.
115
The territory was a client-kingdom named after M. Iulius Cottius, a Ligurian noble, and son of King Donnus.
116
Indeed, Agrippa does appear to have been known by the royal family.
117
Cottius had found a way to peacefully and profitably co-exist with his Roman neighours by constructing a highway over the Alpine pass at Mount Genèvre (Matrona Mons).
118
Traffic from Augusta Taurinorum (Turin) could take the road heading northwest to Cottius’ capital at Segusio (Susa) and go on to Brigantium (Briançon). The road terminated at Glanum (St-Rémy-de-Provence), whence traffic could head south to Arelate (Arles) on the
Via Domitia
which took them to the Iberian peninsula; or north through Arausio (Orange) and directly to Lugdunum.
119
After a long journey Agrippa reached the leading city of the region to assess the situation. Was Aquitania up in arms again? Dio cryptically states only that he ‘put a stop to those troubles’.
120
We are left to guess whether he achieved it by military force or diplomacy. It might have been a sufficient deterrent for the Gallic insurgents to suspend hostilities just knowing Augustus’ own deputy, who had crushed dissent there before, was on his way.
121
The fact is all the more remarkable because Agrippa had not participated in battle since his campaigns against the forces of M. Antonius and Kleopatra in 31 BCE.
