After 23 BC, as part of what became known as Augustus's Second Constitutional Settlement, Agrippa's constitutional powers were greatly increased to provide the Principate of Augustus with greater constitutional stability by providing for a political heir or replacement for Augustus if he were to succumb to his habitual ill health or was assassinated. In the course of the year, proconsular imperium, similar to Augustus's power, was conferred upon Agrippa for five years. The exact nature of the grant is uncertain but it probably covered Augustus's imperial provinces, east and west, perhaps lacking authority over the provinces of the Senate. That was to come later, as was the jealously guarded tribunicia potestas, or powers of a tribune of the plebeians.Syme (1939), 337–338. These great powers of state are not usually heaped upon a former exile. A later source stated that Augustus was advised by his confidant Maecenas to attach Agrippa still more closely to him by making him his son-in-law.Cassius Dio 54.6 In 21 BC, he induced Agrippa to divorce Marcella and marry his daughter, Julia the Elder—the widow of Marcellus.Suetonius, The Life of Augustus 63; Dio, 6.5; Reinhold, Marcus Agrippa. A biography, pp. 67–68, 86–87. In 19 BC, Agrippa was employed in putting down a rising of the Cantabrians in Hispania (Cantabrian Wars).
After 23 BC, as part of what became known as Augustus's Second Constitutional Settlement, Agrippa's constitutional powers were greatly increased to provide the Principate of Augustus with greater constitutional stability by providing for a political heir or replacement for Augustus if he were to succumb to his habitual ill health or was assassinated. In the course of the year, proconsular imperium, similar to Augustus's power, was conferred upon Agrippa for five years. The exact nature of the grant is uncertain but it probably covered Augustus's imperial provinces, east and west, perhaps lacking authority over the provinces of the Senate. That was to come later, as was the jealously guarded tribunicia potestas, or powers of a tribune of the plebeians.Syme (1939), 337–338. These great powers of state are not usually heaped upon a former exile. A later source stated that Augustus was advised by his confidant Maecenas to attach Agrippa still more closely to him by making him his son-in-law.Cassius Dio 54.6 In 21 BC, he induced Agrippa to divorce Marcella and marry his daughter, Julia the Elder—the widow of Marcellus.Suetonius, The Life of Augustus 63; Dio, 6.5; Reinhold, Marcus Agrippa. A biography, pp. 67–68, 86–87. In 19 BC, Agrippa was employed in putting down a rising of the Cantabrians in Hispania (Cantabrian Wars).