Go to Rome and stand in front of the Pantheon, and the letters across the portico say M·AGRIPPA·L·F·COS·TERTIVM·FECIT — Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, made this in his third consulship. He didn't. Agrippa's Pantheon, raised to commemorate Actium, burned in AD 80; the building there now is Hadrian's, put up around 125, and Hadrian chose to carve the old inscription back onto the front of it. Which is a fair summary of the man's whole career. Against Sextus Pompey he cut a channel between the Lucrine lake and the sea to make himself a harbour, built bigger ships and a better grappling hook, and at Naulochus in 36 BC destroyed all but seventeen of the enemy fleet. At Actium on 2 September 31 BC it was Agrippa who commanded the ships, and Octavian who became Augustus. In between he took the aedileship, an office beneath his rank, renovated an aqueduct, became Rome's first water commissioner and had the sewers cleaned. Only one honour was unambiguously his: a naval crown ringed with the beaks of ships, which Cassius Dio says was given to nobody before or since.

King & Country mount him at the walk on a paved road, in muscled cuirass and crested helmet with a blue cloak falling across the horse's flank — a commander riding, not charging. He belongs at the side of The Emperor Augustus, the man he made; there is a quieter link to Pompey the Great, whose son's fleet Agrippa broke at Naulochus; and he has every right to ride under Roman Triumphal Arch, given how many triumphs he supplied to other people. For a diorama, give him The Marching Optios as escort and leave space ahead of him — a mounted figure only reads as a commander when nothing else is in his way.

Model: ROM080 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 1 piece set