Marcus Agrippa

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa was the closest friend of Augustus and the man who made his autocracy after Julius Caesar's murder possible. He was a man of many talents ? a soldier, sailor, architect, diplomat and father ? but above all Augustus' fixer. His untimely death meant Augustus had to rely more on his stepsons to see his military strategy executed. In the first single-volume biography for over 75 years, Lindsay Powell brings the story of this extraordinary Roman to a modern audience. Agrippa was a very capable general in his own right. It was he who eliminated the murderers of Julius Caesar at the Battles of Philippi (42BCE), Mylae and Naulochus (36BCE); who defeated Marcus Antonius and Kleopatra at the Battle of Actium (31BCE) and in so doing gave Egypt to Augustus; who brought an end to the decade-long Cantabrian Wars (19BCE) in Spain; and who was only the second Roman, after Julius Caesar, to cross the Rhine into Germania Magna (38BCE). Fortunately for Augustus he was also remarkably loyal. Agrippa married Julia the Elder, the daughter of Augustus, by whom he fathered the popular princes Gaius and Lucius Caesar. This book shows how Agrippa contributed to the legacy of Augustus' military and foreign policy, changing the direction of the empire forever and how he left Rome a safer and healthier city through great public works which still survive in whole or part. This is the extraordinary story of two friends who together changed the world and a chronicle of war for control of Rome's destiny. The book is a natural partner to the author's previous books 'Eager for Glory' (2011) and 'Germanicus' (2012) (Agrippa was Germanicus' grandfather). 16 pages of plates