{"id":1496,"date":"2026-08-24T14:49:43","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T14:49:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/08\/24\/robert-harris-returns-to-ancient-rome-with-agrippa-a-novel-about-an-empires-forgotten-architect\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T14:49:43","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T14:49:43","slug":"robert-harris-returns-to-ancient-rome-with-agrippa-a-novel-about-an-empires-forgotten-architect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/08\/24\/robert-harris-returns-to-ancient-rome-with-agrippa-a-novel-about-an-empires-forgotten-architect\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Harris returns to ancient Rome with Agrippa \u2013 a novel about an empire\u2019s forgotten architect"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/span> Loredana Sangiuliano\/Shutterstock\/Canva<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Robert Harris has returned to Rome with his new novel, Agrippa. It\u2019s a fictional autobiography of M. Vipsanius Agrippa, right-hand man of the Emperor Augustus, purportedly written in the days before Agrippa\u2019s death at the age of 50 in 12BC.<\/p>\n

In Harris\u2019s Cicero trilogy<\/a> (2021), narrator Tiro allowed readers to see an intimate side of the Roman statesman Cicero<\/a>. In a similar way, Agrippa<\/a> \u2013 and the device of his \u201creal \u2013 but now-lost\u201d\u2013 autobiography \u2013 gives Harris a perspective on the life of Octavian (also known as the young Caesar, and later Augustus). <\/p>\n

Agrippa was Octavian\u2019s close companion and trusted lieutenant from the moment Julius Caesar\u2019s assassination pushed Octavian into the centre of Roman politics, until Agrippa\u2019s death. By that time, Augustus had firmly established himself as Rome\u2019s sole ruler.<\/p>\n

Unlike Tiro, however, Agrippa was a major military and political figure in his own right. A highly competent soldier, he was integral to the young Caesar\u2019s victories. Agrippa later pivoted into politics and who became part of the growing imperial dynasty through his marriage to Augustus\u2019 daughter Julia. Agrippa\u2019s life and Augustus\u2019 sit side by side. Agrippa was, after all, the grandfather of Caligula and great-grandfather of Nero. <\/p>\n

Harris is a superb storyteller, and Agrippa is a compelling read. The complexities of the civil wars of the triumviral period (43-31BC) are positively lucid, and a skilful balance is struck between Rome and the rest of the empire. Public events and private intrigues keep the momentum going throughout. What is perhaps less clear, however, is what is the point of all this skill.<\/p>\n

\n \"A<\/a>
\n A bust of Agrippa, circa 25\u201324BC.<\/span>
\n Louvre Museum<\/a>, CC BY<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After all, a lot of recent research has emphasised the fluidity and uncertainty of the triumviral period, and the political experimentation that Augustus engaged in as he tried to find a form for his new and astonishing reign. <\/p>\n

Australian historian Kathryn Welch<\/a> has written about the importance of Sextus Pompeius, the son of Caesar\u2019s civil war opponent Pompey the Great, who seized control of much of the Mediterranean after Julius Caesar\u2019s death. Jeff Tatum<\/a> professor of classics at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, meanwhile, has published on Mark Antony\u2019s grappling with the problems of power. Kathryn Tempest<\/a>, a historian of Rome at the University of Leicester, has detailed the contexts from which Brutus\u2019 assassination plan arose. Maecenas, another of Augustus\u2019 closest confidantes, has been the object of four separate book-length treatments since 2014. <\/p>\n

Much work has also been done on the traumatic consequences of a generation of civil war for Roman society and culture. Researchers are now much more conscious of the gendered consequences and increased female visibility in public life which followed from the creation of an imperial family. None of this is evident in Harris\u2019s novel.<\/p>\n

In this account, Octavian is bent on world domination from the moment Julius Caesar is killed. What follows is the systematic elimination of his rivals until none is left. The idea that different political outcomes were possible in the thirties BC, or that people were thinking furiously about what the state might look like, or even that what actually happened was one of less plausible possibilities, is not countenanced in this version. <\/p>\n

\n \"A<\/a>
\n Audience with Agrippa by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1876).<\/span>
\n Dick Institute, Kilmarnock<\/a>, CC BY<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is no jeopardy, and not much by way of surprises. Even the \u201crevelation\u201d about Agrippa, which I won\u2019t spoil, doesn\u2019t seem to do much work in the plot. Whatever genre this is, it\u2019s not a thriller.<\/p>\n

Nor is there very much to remark on in Harris\u2019 characters. Anyone who knows the novel I, Claudius<\/a> by Robert Graves (1934) will recognise the character of Livia the poisoner and schemer. Augustus is a rather chillier and nastier character than in Graves\u2019 book, but Harris\u2019 Agrippa is entirely recognisable as the loyal subordinate. <\/p>\n

Indeed, Harris seems to be too fond of his protagonist to let him do anything really horrible \u2013 at least in the context of the period\u2019s brutalities. All he can do, in the end, in a work striving for accuracy, is let Agrippa record his private disquiet.<\/p>\n

A book about making<\/h2>\n

So this is not a work about politics. And it isn\u2019t a revisionist account of the period. It is not interested in cultural shifts \u2013 though Horace and Virgil surface for one entertaining paragraph. What it turns out to be, rather endearingly, is a book about making. <\/p>\n

Agrippa\u2019s chosen way of easing his conscience is through creation and restoration. He demonstrates this through projects that improve Roman infrastructure, including the rebuilding of the navy and harbours, his work as aedile<\/em> in 34 BC to restore Rome\u2019s physical environment, and the construction of a major new aqueduct in Campania. <\/p>\n

The book comes alive when Agrippa is engaged in engineering and construction projects. The afterword concludes with the Pantheon, the temple Agrippa originally commissioned and whose surviving fa\u00e7ade still carries his inscription: M. Agrippa L.f. cos. tertium fecit<\/em> (\u201cMarcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, consul for the third time, built this\u201d). <\/p>\n

As a study of how that inscription came to preserve and shape Agrippa\u2019s legacy, the book makes perfect sense. Indeed, it almost made me wish Harris had written not about Agrippa\u2019s lost autobiography, but about his lost work on aqueducts. It\u2019s a text that would perhaps have better reflected the aspect of Agrippa\u2019s career that survives most clearly: his achievements as an engineer and builder.<\/p>\n

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Catherine Steel receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Loredana Sangiuliano\/Shutterstock\/Canva Robert Harris has returned to Rome with his new novel, Agrippa. It\u2019s a fictional autobiography of M. Vipsanius Agrippa, right-hand man of the Emperor Augustus, purportedly written in the days before Agrippa\u2019s death at the age of 50 in 12BC. In Harris\u2019s Cicero trilogy (2021), narrator Tiro allowed readers to see an intimate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}