Marcus Agrippa: Right-hand Man of Caesar Augustus (40 page)

The Romans’ first battle against the Cantabrians was fought under the walls of Attica or Bergida (whose locations are unknown).
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From there, the Cantabri then retreated to Mons Vindius (possibly Peña Santa), expecting the Romans not to follow.
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They did. After a stout resistance, the city of Aracillum or Racilium (possibly modern Aradillos or Espina del Gallego) fell to Augustus’ troops.
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The last battle in the campaign was the siege of Mons Medullus (possibly Peña Sagra) above the Minius (Miño) River.
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The Roman army surrounded it with a continuous earthwork comprising a ditch and parapet 15 or 18 miles long, and began a direct assault.
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The defenders were trapped. Rather than being taken alive, we are told many of the inhabitants committed suicide by poison, others by fire or sword.
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Strabo notes that facing the prospect of captivity Cantabrian mothers resorted to killing their children, but the theme of ‘death rather than surrender’ among people living among mountains was another stereotype of Roman authors writing about savage barbarians.
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During that gruesome war the assumedly unsophisticated Asturians had also shown a flash of insight into military strategy which took the Romans quite by surprise. Coming down from the mountains they established a position on the Astura River not far from the three Roman camps. Dividing their forces into three groups they launched a simultaneous attack on the Roman camps.
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They might have succeeded were it not for their betrayal by the Brigaecini and the arrival of
legatus Augusti pro praetore
P. Carisius with his army as a result of their warnings, and the Romans were saved from defeat. The Astures retreated to their principal fortified city of Lancea (another place of unknown location) which opened its gates to them.
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After a siege by direct assault the town fell. The Roman commander managed to persuade his soldiers not to raze the city to the ground, pleading that it would be a more fitting monument to Roman victory if it were left standing rather than burnt down. Even with Augustus recuperating in Tarraco and C. Antistius Vetus continuing on, the war of 26–25 BCE was finally won.
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The local mint at
Colonia Augusta Emerita
(modern Mérida), founded just at the end of the war for veterans of
Legiones
V
Alaudae
and X
Gemina
, issued coins in Carisius’ name emblazoned with images of captured spears, curved swords and round shields, piled up high as a trophy on the reverse.
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The Hispanic warriors were not done, however. There was a further outbreak after Carisius retired his post in 23.
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Dio ascribes the cause of this new revolt by the Astures to the extravagant lifestyle led by Carisius and the cruel manner in which he administered the region, whereas the Cantabri joined their neighbours only because they saw an opportunity to make trouble while the new governor C. Furnius settled in.
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They had both underestimated the new governor. Following their failed attempt to besiege a Roman stronghold, the Astures were quickly defeated by Furnius in open battle.
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The separate Cantabrian assault made little impact, and seeing no possibility for victory, they set their townships to the torch and took their own lives by poison, rather than fall into Roman hands. Yet many others surrendered, resolving to fight another day.

Inheriting this turbulent legacy, Agrippa found the latest war to be a true test of his abilities. For a while the insurgents’ strategies and tactics worked, wearing down the Roman troops, resulting in heavy casualties. Dio records that Agrippa ‘lost many of his soldiers’ and his opponents ‘degraded many others because they kept being defeated’, a state of affairs which must have greatly vexed the champion of Actium and Aquitania.
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It was Illyricum of 35–34 BCE all over again. Particularly galling to him was the performance of
Legio Augusta
– probably I rather than II. Its seeming inability to beat its adversary led Agrippa to demand that it be stripped of the honorific title given by Augustus – a deeply humiliating act for the troops who had likely won it for gallantry during recent actions.
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Yet Agrippa was never one to give up if there was a chance of success. Dogged determination to see the mission through and unswerving loyalty to his friend drove Agrippa to push his deputies and men harder in the fight. It was what they had trained for. A later historian would remark how Roman army training periods were bloodless combats while their combats were bloody drills.
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Eventually he gained the upper hand. ‘Finally Agrippa was successful,’ records Dio, adding ‘he at length destroyed nearly all of the enemy who were of military age, deprived the rest of their arms, and forced them to come down from their fortresses and live in the plains’.
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Agrippa had won the
Bellum Cantabricum et Asturicum
.
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While the Roman Commonwealth was grateful to its commander, his own reaction hints that he was not particularly proud of the victory:

Agrippa is once again presented as the self-deprecating general, turning down a public honour; but his bashfulness may have masked his true feelings. Was his modesty a way to save face from the humiliation of the poor conduct of the men he had commanded against a smaller force? Was it a sign of disappointment at his own leadership of the war? Or did he now feel bold enough to answer to no one else other than Augustus? Without being able to read his own memoirs, we cannot ever know.

Yet his hard-won victory achieved what many commanders before him had not. He had broken the resolve of the two last indomitable nations which had stood against Roman annexation over several campaigns, and by doing so he had concluded the two century-long war to complete the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.
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Possibly on Agrippa’s advice, even when forces were later drawn down for deployment elsewhere in the empire, the Romans never stationed fewer that two legions there.
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While he refused a triumph, Agrippa did accept a
corona muralis
(
plate 32
), a military honour – made of gold and decorated with turrets – granted to the first man to scale the wall of a besieged city.
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It was depicted on gold and silver coins as worn by Agrippa in combination with his
corona navalis
.
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With control restored, the Romans could begin economic exploitation of the region. The great lure was gold, previously denied them. They wasted no time and brought all their technological know-how to the challenge of extracting it. The Romans would soon earn a handsome return on their long term investment in blood and treasure in Hispania Citerior – a reported 20,000 pounds of gold were produced each year following its conquest.
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Apart from one minor outburst in 16 BCE, this region of the peninsula would remain peaceful for hundreds of years.
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In the aftermath of violence, Agrippa left his mark in more pacific ways before leaving the region for the last time. Veterans were settled, such as at
Colonia Caesaraugusta
(
plate 33
). To grace the developing
Colonia Augusta Emerita
in Lusitania, he paid for a new public building whose scale rivalled those in Arausio or Arelate in cosmopolitan Gallia Narbonensis.
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The hemicycular theatre of grey granite, which was partly built into a hill and could seat 6,000, featured a high stage and an architectural backdrop (
scaenae frons
).
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It provided the city’s army veterans with a place to enjoy comedies, tragedies and pantomimes, or hear readings of books of history and poetry. The engraved inscription mounted above the entrance archway (
plate 34
) to the
orchestra
and the holes for bronze letters over
aditus maximus
confirm Agrippa was its benefactor, but he did not see it completed as it was finished between 16 and 14 BCE.
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Behind the building there may have been a small sanctuary for the burgeoning imperial cult, based on the find of a fine togate bust of Augustus. It was long thought that, delighted by their gift, the citizens paid for a colossal state of Agrippa to be erected in the marble forum; however, current thinking is that the inscription below – which says ‘AGRIPPA’ on the left edge of the plinth – indicates the sculpture was actually one of a group of Rome’s mythical kings of Alba Longa, ancestors of Augustus.
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In neighbouring Baetica, one Utia acknowledged Agrippa as his patron, while in
municipium
Gades (modern Cadiz), which also functioned as a naval base, the mint struck coins calling him
patronus et parens
of the community.
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In Hispania Citerior, the citizens of Carthago Nova (Cartagena) – where veterans had settled and renamed it grandly
Colonia Victrix Iulia Nova Carthago
– elected him to the honorary office of
praefectus quinquennalis
along with Augustus.
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Agrippa did not take on the duties in person – they were delegated to a local dignitary – but it was recognition of the high regard in which the local people held him.

In Rome, on 9 June 19 BCE the massive construction work on the
Aqua Virgo
was finally completed. It was given the official name of
Aqua Augusta
(
plate 29
), though it continued to be popularly known as the
Virgo
.
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The structure now extended from its source on the east side of the city for 14,105 paces or 21.5km (13 miles).
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It included a 700ft section delivering water to the
Trans Tiberim
region across the river using the
Pons Agrippae
to support its conduit. For most of its length it was a covered channel (
specus
). This was a practical measure; Frontinus noted an underground channel was less prone to accidental damage and from the extremes of heat and cold.
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The water of the Virgo was kept fresh and free of sediment using a series of zigzags in the route it took, which, together with the gentle incline of just 0.02 per cent, slowed the flow of the water just enough to cause any sand or gravel to sink to the bottom of the conduit.
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According to Frontinus, who was appointed
curator aquarum
by Emperor Nerva, the
Aqua Virgo
supplied a constant 2,504
quinariae
or approximately 1.2m
³
(42.3ft
³
) per second or almost 104,000m
³
(3,700,00ft
³
) of water per day.
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Fascinated by such things, as aedile, technically-minded Agrippa is known to have kept a dossier of personal notes (
commentarii
) recording volumes of water flowing to public and private buildings.
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The conduit only emerged above ground beyond the Pincius Hill – below the Gardens of Lucullus (
Horti Luculliani
) – whence it continued over arches for 700 paces west of the Quirinalis to the
Campus Martius
, terminating at the
Saepta Iulia
.
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At the terminus a tower (
castellum
) – one of eighteen in the
Virgo
system – distributed the water through underground lead pipes to a set of civic amenities Agrippa’s engineers had constructed to dazzle and entertain the Roman public.
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Adjoining and expanding the original covered Spartan Baths erected in 25 BCE, a new complex of damp heat baths had been built (
map 11
). Called the
Thermae Agrippae
it was a marvel of hydraulic engineering. There had been bathing complexes in Rome before, but in scale and lavishness the Baths of Agrippa were the first of their kind and, for the next three centuries, future rulers of Rome would try to outdo them in size and luxury.
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The building, oriented north and south on the same axis as the Pantheon and
Saepta Iulia
, covered an area of approximately 100–120m (328–393ft) north and south and 80–100m (262–328ft) east and west.
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Only a part of a later rebuilding of its main hall has survived (
plate 16
) and is visible behind the houses in the Via dell’ Arco della Ciambella of the modern city, and its proportions are truly massive. It comprised a series of rooms of increasing heat, starting with a warm room (
tepidarium
), next to a very hot room (
caldarium
) – each fitted with inset pools and raised basins, heated by the hypocaust under floor hot air system – and concluded with a cold room (
frigidarium
) and plunge pool.
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The rooms were of immense size, with high vaulted ceilings, all lavishly decorated from floor to roof with coloured tiles and fine artworks.
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This enlightened public art policy advocated by Agrippa seems to have proved highly popular for, when the Emperor Tiberius later removed the statue by Lysippos of Sikyon – considered one the three greatest Greek sculptors of the Classical Age – called
Apoxyomenos
(‘the Bodyscraper’) from the plinth outside the baths, where it had been set by Agrippa, to his bedroom and replaced it with a statue by a lesser artist, the people took their complaint to the theatre where they protested loudly and forced him to return the piece.
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