Roman general — one with a tight hold, we hear (7)
I believe the answer is:
agrippa
'roman general' is the definition.
(Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Roman general)
'one with a tight hold we hear' is the wordplay.
'one with' is an insertion indicator.
'a tight hold' becomes 'grip' (I've seen this before).
'we hear' becomes 'apa' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'grip' placed within 'apa' is 'AGRIPPA'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for agrippa that I've seen before include "General who beat Mark Antony at Actium" , "10 [GENERAL]" , "Old general" , "Marcus -, Roman fleet commander who defeated Cleopatra at Actium" , "General advisor for emperor" .)