SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Robert Harris, who is the author of so many bestsellers, including "Conclave," has returned to Rome with the imagined memoir of "Agrippa," the brilliant general and trusted ally of the first Roman Emperor, Augustus. When we meet the aging soldier, he has a festering wound on his leg and not much time left, and he pours out the story of his life - battles, blood, bravery, betrothals and betrayals, vows, reversals, and occasional honor. Robert Harris joins us now from the BBC in London to talk about his novel titled simply, "Agrippa." Thanks so much for being with us.
ROBERT HARRIS: Thank you for having me on.
SIMON: What drew you to write about this man?
HARRIS: Well, I'd come across him in earlier novels, "Pompeii," my novel about the eruption. It was Agrippa who built the aqueduct which features in that novel. And in the "Cicero" trilogy that I wrote, he comes in at the end as the somewhat menacing consigliere of Octavius, the future Emperor Augustus. So he was on my radar, and I just became more and more intrigued by him. He was immensely powerful and important. He was consul three times, effective co-ruler of the Roman world. A brilliant general.
He was a master builder, not just aqueducts, most famously, I suppose the Pantheon in Rome, which still carries his name above the entrance. And yet we know almost nothing about him. He was absolutely key figure in world history, but he left behind no letters, no speeches, very few reported remarks. So in a sense, for a historical novelist, Agrippa is a perfect subject.
SIMON: Agrippa is a name that he acquires at birth and reminds him that he came into the world at great cost, doesn't it?
HARRIS: Yes. Agrippa is short for agrippatum, a difficult birth. His mother died giving birth to him. That seems to have been the origin of this unusual name, Agrippa, and he carried it like a mark, really, throughout his life, and I think it must have helped condition him. In the novel, I suggest that he learned to have to defend himself with his fists from school fellows who might taunt him. He was certainly - if you see a bust or statue of Agrippa, he looks like a nightclub bouncer or a heavyweight boxer. He has a brooding fighter's expression. And I think a lot of his character is in that name.
SIMON: He makes a boyhood friendship, which becomes - grows into an alliance, doesn't he?
HARRIS: Yes, the mystery - one of the great mysteries about Agrippa is that he was born into a plebeian common family - not much money, no status. And yet at the age of about 13 or 14, he was sent to a school on the Palatine Hill, which was for the sons of senators and the elite. And there he met the great-nephew of Julius Caesar, who was at that time in Gaul and just about to cross the Rubicon and invade Italy. Why it was that Agrippa should find himself at school with someone like Octavius is a puzzle. But certainly, that was the making of him because they became close friends.
I think because Octavius was always rather a weedy, sickly figure, he was quite short in stature. He had to have built-up shoes. And as I say, Agrippa was a big guy, almost like his bodyguard. And they were thrown together, and they joined the army at the same time, and they both came under the wing of Julius Caesar.
SIMON: We should explain, of course, Octavia Caesar was Julius's nephew, whom he adopted as a son.
HARRIS: Yes, and that is the crucial moment in their career, really, because they were both given this signal mark of favor by Julius Caesar. They were both brought back on his flagship from Spain when he won the Battle of Munda. Then they were both sent together to Apollonia, modern-day Albania, to await his arrival to begin a great campaign in the East. He never made it because he was assassinated in 44 BC.
SIMON: Octavia Caesar, I particularly enjoyed your account of him because he - it seems to me he was often underestimated. He could be shrewd.
HARRIS: Oh, he was probably one of the greatest and shrewdest politicians in the ancient world, or maybe at any time. The way he managed to survive, to see off his rivals, and then to seize power and to hold it for over 30 years - it was an astonishing achievement. He kept the facade of the Roman Republic with its elections and its senate and its debates and magistrates. But actually, it was only a facade. Behind the scenes, all the power was in his hands. But people were willing to put up with it, and that was a mark of a remarkably clever politician.
SIMON: Agrippa has a visitor one day, Pompeia. And I'll be oblique about this, but Pompeia is a woman who knew Julius Caesar, and she - let me put it this way - sees something in Agrippa.
HARRIS: The question about Agrippa is what was his background, and how did he come to rise to such heights? And it was speculated about a century ago that it's possible he was actually Julius Caesar's illegitimate son. Caesar was in Rome the year before Agrippa was born, so the dates fit. He had a lot of affairs. He was notorious for them, and he must have fathered illegitimate children all over the place. It would explain why Agrippa was sent to the smart school with Caesar's closest living male relative.
And although talent isn't necessarily hereditary, it would explain why this man who came from nowhere was a military genius and an organizational genius as well. It's speculation, but it's possible. It would also explain why we have so little knowledge of Agrippa's background. It's as if it was all covered up.
SIMON: Why are some of us, and I include myself in this company, just so utterly fascinated by the old Romans?
HARRIS: Well, they were extraordinary people. Their accomplishments are epic, their poetry, their oratory, their philosophy, their architecture, their military prowess. They are, in many ways, the foundation of our modern Western world, in particular, America, of course - the Founding Fathers taking so much from the Old Roman Republic when they drew up the American Constitution. So they're in our DNA, I think, and they hold a mirror up to us. You know, this novel spans the 50 years when the Roman Republic collapsed and was replaced by a new system of rule by oligarch, essentially. And the fact that that happened, I think, is standing warning to us today that democracy can be fragile.
SIMON: Lessons for us today.
HARRIS: Yes. I mean, I don't want to read over too much. You can't. But you can make certain observations about it. I must say, President Trump is an imperial kind of a figure, or so he seems to us over in Europe. He looks like a Roman emperor. He has gladiators in a cage fight on the lawn of the White House. He erects triumphal arches or tries to. He puts his name onto buildings. There is something epic about him. You can imagine him in a toga with a laurel leaf headdress. I think this adds to the interest in ancient Rome at the moment.
SIMON: Robert Harris, his latest novel, "Agrippa." Thank you so much for being with us.
HARRIS: Thank you. It's a pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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