Marcus Agrippa: Right-hand Man of Caesar Augustus (39 page)

The baths were supplied with fresh water. The nearby aqueduct, known by its modern name, Pont du Gard, which provided Nemausus with water, has been traditionally associated with Agrippa, but the evidence for his involvement in it is more by inference than substance.
¹⁴⁵
Indeed, recent excavations at the outflows in Nîmes have produced coins which suggest the great aqueduct was built no earlier than the reign of Claudius, around 40 or 50 CE (
fig. 7
).
¹⁴⁶
They also found the ancient engineers had to work around earlier tunnels dug during the Augustan period, and it may be these conduits which were commissioned while Agrippa was in Gaul. Even if Agrippa was not directly responsible for building the aqueduct and the Pont du Gard, with his penchant for addressing large scale engineering challenges, it is within the realms of possibility that he commissioned an engineering study into how best to provide a continuous supply of fresh water to Nemausus, which later engineers may have consulted and realized.
¹⁴⁷

Hardly had Agrippa restored peace to the Gallic hinterland and Rhineland frontier, when news arrived from the north of the Iberian Peninsula. The people there were in revolt – again. Dio reports:

Evidently, the local Roman commander C. Furnius had reason to believe the situation was grave enough to call for the support of Augustus’ deputy – or at least to apprise him of it.
¹⁴⁹
True to character, Agrippa decided to evaluate the situation for himself and immediately set off for Hispania Citerior. The route he took is not recorded. By land, assuming his destination was Legio (modern León) or Segisama, the available road network at the time determined that he would have to go via Tarraco, a distance of almost 1,200km (745 miles), which could take a month to travel on horseback. By taking a swift ship from the coast of Aquitania, he would have been able to shave several days off the journey, depending on prevailing sailing conditions. As usual, the imperial commander would have been accompanied by his bodyguard of handpicked lictors, staff of adjutants and personal slaves.

Figure 7. Some historians believe Agrippa commissioned the Pont du Gard to supply fresh water to
Colonia Nemausus
. Recent archaeological evidence suggests it was actually constructed during the reign of Claudius. Its design may have been inspired by Agrippa’s
Aqua Iulia
in Rome.

The region he entered was heavily militarized. Although Augustus had claimed to have won the war of 26–25 BCE in which he had himself fought against the Astures and Cantabri, the massive military force he had personally assembled remained
in situ
; it had been called to action again under the command of Furnius to quell a subsequent uprising which broke out in 22.
¹⁵⁰
Known to be present during the Augustan campaign were
Legiones
I
Augusta
, II
Augusta
, IIII
Macedonica
, V
Alaudae
, VI
Victrix
, VIIII
Hispana
, X
Gemina
, and XX
Valeria Victrix
.
¹⁵¹
In support of them were auxiliary cavalry from
Ala Augusta
,
Ala
II
Gallorum
,
Ala Parthorum
and
Ala
II
Thracum Victrix Civium Romanorum
; and infantry from
Cohors
II
Gallorum
and
Cohors
IV
Thracum Aequitata
.
¹⁵²
The total land force deployed was up to 52,000 troops. Warships and transports arriving from Aquitania had helped to complete the encirclement of the rebels and contributed to their ultimate defeat.
¹⁵³
On his arrival, like any good commander, Agrippa would meet with the legates and
praefecti
of the units as was normal practice.
¹⁵⁴
Many of these senior officers would have already been known to him personally or at least by reputation. What he found, however, was an army demoralized in spirit and fatigued from endless fighting:

The refusal of the men to respond unquestioningly to Augustus’ own deputy’s orders is striking. Roman troops were famous for their obedience to often brutally harsh discipline, but they did resort to mutiny if they felt they were being treated unfairly as Roman citizens. Even Iulius Caesar, famed for the loyalty of his soldiers, had himself faced a mutiny of his own troops in 47 BCE.
¹⁵⁶
For the 44-year-old Agrippa this was the first time he had faced open insubordination. He had met the challenge before of motivating inexperienced men against seemingly insurmountable odds – when building his navy and training marines for the war against Sex. Pompeius – but not outright defiance from battle hardened veterans. Before Agrippa could fight the rebels he had been sent to bring to heel, he first had to restore discipline and revitalize the morale of his own men – and he had to do so quickly. Iulius Caesar had stood before his mutineers alone and addressed them as
quirites
, ‘citizens’, rather than the usual
comilitiones
, ‘fellow soldiers’.
¹⁵⁷
That one word, loaded with emotional significance, was enough to break the mutiny. Not having such a personal connection to the legions in Hispania Citerior borne of years of fighting together, Agrippa had much less influence. Probably speaking to them as
milites
, ‘soldiers’, he adopted a ‘carrot and stick’ approach, and applied it with patience and persistence.
¹⁵⁸
It worked. ‘Partly by admonishing and exhorting them and partly by inspiring them with hopes,’ writes Dio, ‘he soon made them yield obedience.’
¹⁵⁹

While Agrippa was consumed in activities designed to rebuild the cohesion of his own forces, however, his opponents used the absence of the Romans to their advantage. The recent wars had honed the fighting skills of the Iberian warriors and hardened their resolve against defeat. Their preferred strategy was still to hit their enemy when they were least expecting an attack by ambushing them, then running for the protective cover of the forests which concealed the foothills of the surrounding mountains.
¹⁶⁰
The Astures occupied most of the inland area of modern Asturias, León and northern Zamora in Spain, as far west of Trás os Montes in Portugal (
map 15
). The Cantabri made their homes closer to the northern Atlantic coast, covering the whole of modern Cantabria province, the eastern Asturias, the adjacent mountainous regions of Castile-León and the northern fringes of Palencia and Burgos provinces. Forming a natural border with the Romanized south controlled from Legio were the craggy Cantabrian Mountains (Cordillera Cantábrica). The spectacular Torrecerredo peak rises to 2,648m (8,688ft) and the range extend eastwards for some 200km (120 miles). Among these mountains and valleys the Cantabri lived in strongly fortified towns.
¹⁶¹
A wide plain swept down to the north to rugged coastal cliffs, which prevented retreat.
¹⁶²
It was a landscape which had shaped the character of the people who lived there. Strabo ascribes the wildness of the people to their far distance from Mediterranean civilization and the difficulty of communications between pockets of local communities separated by mountains.
¹⁶³
It was familiarity with this terrain which gave the Astures and Cantabri their greatest advantage over the Romans, especially when on the march when their long supply lines were exposed.

Compared to the Roman soldier, the Cantabrian warrior was lightly armed and protected. The poet Lucan, writing seventy-five or so years after Agrippa’s campaign, contrasted the ‘Cantabrian with his short weapons and the Teuton with his long ones’.
¹⁶⁴
Among his arsenal was the short, straight stabbing sword – the Roman legionary’s weapon of choice, the
gladius Hispaniensis
(
plate 19
), was directly based on it – or the curved machete-like
falcata
, as well as the dagger, spear, lance and the formidable double-headed axe (
bipennis
).
¹⁶⁵
His protective gear might include a round or oval shield made of wood, and if he had the means to afford it, a helmet to protect the head and body armour worn over a tunic of wool.
¹⁶⁶
On foot, the combination of light arms and inferior numbers meant Cantabrian warriors tended to avoid close quarters combat, preferring instead guerrilla warfare.
¹⁶⁷
On the open plain, they preferred to use cavalry, exploiting speed and agility to great effect. Their tactics were admired and later, as they often did when they saw a good idea, adopted by the Romans themselves. These were the semicircular formation (
circulus Cantabricus
) in which a single file of riders discharged a constant volley of missiles in rotation, and a heavy frontal attack (
Cantabricus impetus
) intended to punch through a line of massed enemy troops.
¹⁶⁸
Strabo notes ‘they ride double on horseback, though in the time of battle one of the two fights on foot’ – a cavalry tactic the Romans themselves had used in the 210s BCE.
¹⁶⁹
Cantabrian cavalry also fought in the hills. Little wonder then that Agrippa found his troops exhausted.

Map 15. The Asturian/Cantabrian War Zone.

Ancient writers characterize the Iberian peoples in stereotypical terms as bandits and robbers, unable to form strategic alliances with their neighbours without quickly resorting to knavery.
¹⁷⁰
Even Dio denigrates the Cantabrian rebels as captives who had risen against their masters.
¹⁷¹
The Romans were foolish to believe such misconceptions. The rugged terrain and guerrilla mode of fighting, even with smaller forces, put the Romans, who trained relentlessly for set-piece battles or sieges, at a great disadvantage. Agrippa had experienced first-hand similar tactics in Illyricum during the early-mid 30s BCE, but he had not personally led a major campaign since the Actian War. The twelve year hiatus from campaigning would catch the Roman commander by surprise. Indeed, his opening moves in the campaign did not go well, and he could not gain the upper hand. ‘In fighting against the Cantabri,’ writes Dio, ‘he met with many reverses.’
¹⁷²
He faced a tough and motivated opponent, ‘for not only had they gained practical experience, as a result of having been slaves to the Romans, but also despaired of having their lives granted to them again if they were taken captive’.
¹⁷³
For a while it must have seemed that he had lost his leadership edge.

The details of the war of 19 BCE are entirely lost to us.
¹⁷⁴
Based on their previously reported strategies and tactics, we may surmise that the Astures and Cantabri launched ambuscades from the hills upon Roman troops while on the march, attacked their temporary marching camps and attempted to storm civilian settlements. The war of 26–25 BCE had been one of siege warfare and raiding rather than pitched battles. Basing his command operations centre at Segisama, Augustus had divided his forces into three army groups with which he successfully enveloped the whole of Cantabria and, as Florus poetically describes the manoeuvre in hunting terms, ‘enclosed its fierce people like wild beasts in a net’.
¹⁷⁵
It may have been during this period that
Legio
VIIII received its war honour (
agnomen
)
Hispana
or
Hispaniensis
. He also cut off any chance of escape the Cantabri may have contemplated by using his navy to patrol the Bay of Biscay and land marines as required.