Agrippa

By: Robert Harris

From the internationally bestselling author of Conclave, Precipice and the acclaimed Cicero trilogy comes a sweeping new political thriller about the general who built an empire—and paid the ultimate price. Agrippa is Robert Harris’s monumental return to the world of ancient Rome on the edge of dictatorship, a novel for our times.

In the turbulent aftermath of Julius Caesar’s assassination, two young men seize the chance to shape the future of Rome: Octavius, Caesar’s cunning heir, and his brilliant common-born ally, Marcus Agrippa. Together, they fight for control of the empire, navigate shifting loyalties, vanquish their enemies at Philippi, and crush the fabled lovers Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Actium, securing a new empire that will change the world.

But power never comes without a price. Decades later Octavius rules supreme, now as Caesar Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, while Agrippa, soldier, statesman and builder of Rome, finds himself betrayed by those closest to him and exiled from the empire he helped create. Alone on the Bay of Naples, he turns to his memories, revisiting the wars, alliances and deceptions that forged his destiny.

Sweeping from the blood-soaked battlefields of the Republic to the marble corridors of imperial power, Agrippa is a masterful novel of ambition and statecraft, loyalty and betrayal, and how even the greatest empires are built on fragile bonds between men.

Critic reviews

ADVANCE PRAISE:
“Conclave fans are already familiar with Harris’s knack for blending (fictionalized) petty interpersonal dramas and (real) political machinations, though this time the back-stabbing is literal." —The New York Times; The Novels Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2026 list

Praise for the books of Robert Harris:
"The king of the page-turning thriller." —i Paper

"Harris's cleverness, judgment and eye for detail are second to none." —Sunday Times

"Harris writes with a skill and ingenuity that few other novelists can match." —Financial Times

Praise for the Cicero trilogy:
"One of the great triumphs of contemporary historical literature." —The Times

"A master storyteller." —The Observer