Depends on what period. There was the happy period when he was tutor to Tiberius' youngest son, until the son died, and Tiberius cut off all contact with those associated with his boy, so grief stricken he was. Agrippa, as noted above, was unable to borrow against the good will of association with the emperor, so this was when he went to work for his wife's brother, Antipas the Tetrarch, (for - shudder - WAGES!) as an important agora manager. Unfortunately he was so desperate for cash to live his preferred life of luxury, that he accepted a bribe from trade representatives from Damascus, and got caught."AJ XVIII 144-145: Agrippa’s ‘noble spirit’ is said to have caused ‘lavishness in giving’ (the latter meant spending money on luxuries and giving bribes to the emperor’s freedmen)"AJ 18.6.1 Now as Agrippa was by nature magnanimous and generous in the presents he made, while his mother was alive this inclination of his mind did not appear; that he might be able to avoid her anger for such his extravagance. But when Bernice was dead, and he was left to his own conduct, he spent a great deal extravagantly in his daily way of living; and a great deal in the immoderate presents he made; and those chiefly among Caesar’s freed-men; in order to gain their assistance. Insomuch that he was in a little time reduced to poverty; and could not live at Rome any longer.
Who were the "freedmen" and what did Agrippa gain?
Tird of living on the run from tax collectors (procurators big and small), Agrippa tried to return to Rome, hoping to get back into the good graces of Tiberius, and almost got arrested by a local procurator as a "debtor to the emperor" for a large amount of money, bribing the shipmaster on which he was interred to cut the mooring lines and escape to sea undetected by the guard.
The procurator wrote to the emperor's staff of this incident, and the emperor received this just before he had an audience with Agrippa. Maybe that was the whole reason he did give him an audience in the first place. Feeling pity on Agrippa, he gave him a new assignment, tutoring his other son Gaius.
They (Gaius and Agrippa) apparently got along smashingly, but maybe because Agrippa was a "fun" guy to hang with, oriental extravagance and all, not due to deep discussions about life. I doubt Agrippa's "religious" customs interested Gaius in the least, other than the visual aesthetics of the orient. They got along so well that Agrippa unwisely told Gaius how he wished Tiberius would just drop dead and leave Gaius in charge, within earshot of the carriage driver, who finked on him to emperor. Agrippa was thrown into prison with a chain around his waist. Finally Tiberius did die, and Gaius released him after a short period with a solid gold chain as a gift for the inconvenience.
But while Agrippa tried to finance his return trip to Rome, he is said to have tapped his own freedmen. These had probably long ago been manumitted, in Tiberius' time, and they obliged their patron with "loans."
So, Agrippa went from manumitting slaves and leaving them in charge of successful businesses, and throwing incredibly expensive parties for the emperor (Steven Huller would have really been in demand if he lived then), bribing the emperor's freedmen for closer access to the holy family, to the absolute reverse, of borrowing from his own relatively successful freedmen to make a good appearance before the emperor.
After he was appointed King of the old tetrarchy of Philip, he stayed in Rome with Gaius for about 2 years.
This guy's life was a virtual roller coaster! Super highs and super lows.
DCH
Statistics: Posted by DCHindley — Tue Feb 20, 2024 11:48 am