Robert Harris On Returning To Ancient Rome For His Latest Novel
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Why did Robert Harris choose Marcus Agrippa as the focus of his new novel?
Now our next guest
specialises in political fiction that is accessible, intelligent and entertaining. You may know books like Enigma, Munich, Precipice, Act of Oblivion. And also he has a terrific interest in ancient Rome, such as Pompeii and the Caesaree Trilogy, Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator. Yes, it's Robert Harris who is with us. Robert, you're very welcome to The Last Word.
Thanks, Matt. Pleasure to be here.
Now, Agrippa is your new novel. You've gone back to Rome. Why?
Well, it's just a source of endless fascination. They're just such huge characters. They're interesting in their own right, of course, but they also, their lives, their society, it sheds a kind of light on our own society and what's going on now. And Agrippa was just a brilliant subject for a historical novelist. We know that he did huge things. He was consul three times, co-ruler of the world once, He built the fleet and beat Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium. And yet at the same time, his inner life is a blank. He left no letters or speeches behind. So for a historical novelist, it's a dream. Because
he left you a blank canvas
to
make it all up.
Yeah, what the Romans would have called a tabula rasa, and I can do what I like, really.
Okay, but working within the confines of certain historical events that we have records of.
Yeah, I wanted to make it as plausible as I could. The book takes the form of a fictionalised memoir. He's 50, he's gone to his house on the Bay of Naples and he's looking back over his life. That's the form the book takes. And I've tried to keep it accurate whilst at the same time speculating what kind of a man it was that rose to power with Augustus and that really made Augustus possible.
In what way possible?
Well, Augustus, who was born Gaius Octavius Therinus, was a pretty feeble physical specimen.
How does the novel’s fictional memoir format let Harris explore Roman history?
He was often ill, quite frequently on the point of death. And as a soldier, he was pretty hopeless. He often missed battles because he was too ill. And he was short. He had to wear built-up heels to try and conceal that. Agrippa was a complete contrast plebeian born plebeian so you know kind of commoner as it were but you only have to look at the statues of him to see it looks like a prize fighter and he physically robust tough brilliant soldier And the two of them, who met when they were about 13 or 14 years old, complimented one another. And they rose together and they ended up taking over the world. It's an extraordinary story. So Agrippa is both interesting, but he is actually also a way of looking at power and Augustus and the end of the Roman democracy and the arrival of a kind of oligarch state.
It's also fascinating in the amount of violence of the time as well. There seemed to be very little respect for human life, was there?
No, I mean, that's one of the great differences between the Romans and us, their cruelty, their lack of conscience. Mind you, a Roman might well raise his eyebrows and point to Hiroshima and Auschwitz and say, well, we never did anything like that. But yeah, this is the first novel I've written where I've actually had to write battle scenes, which I greatly enjoyed, I must say, in a kind of boy zone sort of way. And, yeah, the treatment of prisoners, the savagery with which these wars were fought, It is shocking, really.
Or even when deals are being done where they decide that they're just going to kill certain people and take their wealth and that will feed their armies.
Yes, exactly. This is the famous conference in Bononia where the three kind of people who emerged victorious and alive from the civil wars, Lepidus, Mark Antony and Octavius met on an island, patted one another down to make sure no one had a concealed weapon, and then carved up the world, and then turned to the question of how they were to pay their soldiers who were watching from the riverbanks where the island was. And they decided on proscriptions, as they called it, which was an extreme form of wealth tax, whereby they killed the top 1,000 wealthiest people in the country. And Mark Antony said, this could look bad.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
Why did Robert Harris choose Marcus Agrippa as the focus of his new novel?
0:00–2:14
2
How does the novel’s fictional memoir format let Harris explore Roman history?
2:14–5:11
3
What parallels does Harris draw between ancient Roman power struggles and modern politics?
5:11–8:00
4
How are the brutal battle scenes in *Agrippa* written to feel authentic?
8:00–10:19
5
In what ways does the book reflect on the decline of the Roman Republic?
10:19–12:56
6
Why does Harris compare contemporary leaders like Putin and Trump to Roman figures?
12:56–14:25
7
How did Harris craft Agrippa’s voice to suit a first‑person memoir?
14:25–15:52
Speakers
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