Marcus Agrippa Vipsanius, a celebrated Roman, who obtained a victory over Sextus Pompey, and favoured the cause of Augustus at the battles of Actium and Philippi, where he behaved with great valour. He advised his imperial friend to re-establish the republican government at Rome, but he was overruled by Mecænas. In his expeditions in Gaul and Germany, he obtained several victories, but refused the honours of a triumph, and turned his liberality towards the embellishing of Rome and the raising of magnificent buildings, one 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 a proof of his regard, gave him his daughter Julia in marriage, and left him the care 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 in the 51st year of his age, 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 Cæsares, Posthumus Agrippa, Agrippina, and Julia. His son, Caius Cæsar Agrippa, was adopted by Augustus, and made consul, by the flattery of the Roman people at the age of 14 or 15. This promising youth went to Armenia on an expedition against the Persians, where he received a fatal blow from the treacherous hand of Lollius, the governor of one of the neighbouring cities. He languished for a little time and died in Lycia. His younger brother, Lucius Cæsar Agrippa, was likewise adopted by his grandfather Augustus; but he was soon after banished to Campania, for using seditious language against his benefactor. In the seventh year of his exile he would have been recalled had not Livia and Tiberius, jealous of the partiality of Augustus for him, ordered him to be assassinated in his 26th year. He has been called ferocious and savage; and he gave himself the name of Neptune, because he was fond of fishing. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 8, li. 682.—Horace, bk. 1, ode 6.——One of the servants of the murdered prince assumed his name and raised commotions. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 2, ch. 39.——Sylvius, a son of Tiberius Sylvius king of Latium. He reigned 33 years, and was succeeded by his son Romulus Sylvius. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, bk. 1, ch. 8.——A consul who conquered the Æqui.——A philosopher. Diogenes Laërtius.——Herodes, a son of Aristobulus, grandson of the Great Herod, who became tutor to the grandchild of Tiberius, and was soon after imprisoned by the suspicious tyrant. When Caligula ascended the throne his favourite was released, presented with a chain of gold as heavy as that which had lately confined him, and made king of Judæa. He was a popular character with the Jews: and it is said, that while they were flattering him with the appellation of God, an angel of God struck him with the lousy disease, of which he died, A.D. 43. His son, of the same name, was the last king of the Jews, deprived of his kingdom by Claudius, in exchange for other provinces. He was with Titus at the celebrated siege of Jerusalem, and died A.D. 94. It was before him that St. Paul pleaded, and made mention of his incestuous commerce with his sister Berenice. Juvenal, satire 6, li. 156.—Tacitus, bk. 2, Histories, ch. 81.——Menenius, a Roman general, who obtained a triumph over the Sabines, appeased the populace of Rome by the well-known fable of the belly and the limbs, and erected the new office of tribunes of the people, A.U.C. 261. He died poor, but universally regretted: his funeral was at the expense of the public from which also his daughters received dowries. Livy, bk. 2, ch. 32.—Florus, bk. 1, ch. 23.——A mathematician in the reign of Domitian; he was a native of Bithynia.
Agrippīna, a wife of Tiberius. The emperor repudiated her to marry Julia. Suetonius, Tiberias, ch. 7.——A daughter of Marcus Agrippa, and granddaughter to Augustus. She married Germanicus, whom she accompanied in Syria; and when Piso poisoned him, she carried his ashes to Italy, and accused his murderer, who stabbed himself. She fell under the displeasure of Tiberius, who exiled her in an island, where she died A.D. 26, for want of bread. She left nine children, and was universally distinguished for intrepidity and conjugal affection. Tacitus, bk. 1, Annals, ch. 2, &c.—Suetonius, Tiberias, ch. 52.——Julia, daughter of Germanicus and Agrippina, married Domitius Ænobarbus, by whom she had Nero. After her husband’s death she married her uncle the emperor Claudius, whom she destroyed to make Nero succeed to the throne. After many cruelties and much licentiousness she was assassinated by order of her son, and as she expired she exclaimed, “Strike the belly which could give birth to such a monster.” She died A.D. 59, after a life of prostitution and incestuous gratifications. It is said that her son viewed her dead body with all the raptures of admiration, saying, he never could have believed his mother was so beautiful a woman. She left memoirs which assisted Tacitus in the composition of his annals. The town which she built, where she was born, on the borders of the Rhine, and called Agrippina Colonia, is the modern Cologne. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 4, ch. 75; bk. 12, chs. 7, 22, &c.
Agrisius. See: [Acrisius].
Agrisope, or Agriope, the mother of Cadmus. Hyginus, fable 6.
Agrius, son of Parthaon drove his brother Œneus from the throne. He was afterwards expelled by Diomedes the grandson of Œneus, upon which he killed himself. Hyginus, fables 175 & 242.—Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 7.—Homer, Iliad, bk. 14, li. 117.——A giant.——A centaur killed by Hercules. Apollodorus, bk. 2, ch. 5.——A son of Ulysses by Circe. Hesiod, Theogony, li. 1013.——The father of Thersites. Ovid, ex Ponto, bk. 3, poem 9, li. 9.
Agrŏlas, surrounded the citadel of Athens with walls, except that part which afterwards was repaired by Cimon. Pausanias, bk. 1, ch. 28.
Agron, king of Illyria, who, after conquering the Ætolians, drank to such excess that he died instantly, B.C. 231. Polybius, bk. 2, ch. 4.
Agrotas, a Greek orator of Marseilles.
Agrotĕra, an anniversary sacrifice of goats offered to Diana at Athens. It was instituted by Callimachus the Polemarch, who vowed to sacrifice to the goddess so many goats as there might be enemies killed in a battle which he was going to fight against the troops of Darius, who had invaded Attica. The quantity of the slain was so great, that a sufficient number of goats could not be procured; therefore they were limited to 500 every year, till they equalled the number of Persians slain in battle.——A temple of Ægira in Peloponnesus, erected to the goddess under this name. Pausanias, bk. 7, ch. 26.
Agyleus and Agyieus from ἀγυια, a street, a surname of Apollo, because sacrifices were offered to him in the public streets of Athens. Horace, bk. 4, ode 6.