Marcus Agrippa

Marcus Agrippa reconstructs the life of Augustus’s closest friend, commander and political partner. Agrippa helped secure Octavian’s inheritance after Caesar’s assassination, developed the fleet that defeated Sextus Pompey and won the decisive naval victory over Antony and Cleopatra at Actium. His campaigns in Gaul, Hispania, Illyricum and the eastern Mediterranean made him indispensable to the creation and defence of the Augustan settlement.

Powell also examines Agrippa as diplomat, administrator and builder. He developed roads and aqueducts, expanded public bathing, created parks and constructed the original Pantheon, while his marriage to Julia placed his children in the line of succession. Agrippa’s refusal to convert military success into an independent bid for power becomes the central question of a biography explaining how service, friendship and family allowed Augustus’s regime to endure.