Agrippa - Military commander and friend of Augustus
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa was a boyhood friend of Augustus and a renowned military commander on land and sea, winning the famous battle of Actium against the forces of Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra. Declared Augustus' successor, Agrippa's brilliant career ended when he predeceased Augustus in 12 B.C. He was married to Augustus' daughter Julia; father of Gaius and Lucius Caesars, Agrippa Postumus, Julia and Agrippina Senior; grandfather of Caligula, and great-grandfather of Nero.
M. Agrippa Vipsanius, a celebrated Roman, who obtained a victory over Sextus Pompey and favored the cause of Augustus at the battles of Actium and
Philippi, where he behaved with great valor. He advised his imperial friend to re-establish the republican government at
Rome, but he was overruled by Macaenas. In his expedition in Gaul and
Germany, he obtained several victories, but refused the honors of a triumph, and turned his liberality towards embellishing
Rome, and the raising of magnificent buildings, of which the Pantheon still exists.
After he had retired for two years to Mitylene, in consequence of a quarrel with Marcellus, Augustus recalled him, and as proof of his regard, gave him his daughter Julia in marriage, and left him the car of the empire, during an absence of two years, employed in visiting the Roman provinces of
Greece and
Asia.
He died, universally lamented, at
Rome, at 51 years old, in 12 B.C. and his body was placed in the tomb which Augustus had prepared for himself. He had been married three times, to Pomponia, daughter of Atticus, to Marcella, daughter of Octavia, and to Julia, by whom he had five children, Caius and Lucius Caesares, Posthumus Agrippa, Agrippina and Julia.
Obverse legends