Pompey
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Latin: [ˈŋnae̯ʊs pɔmˈpeːi̯ʊs ˈmaŋnʊs]; 29 September 106 BC – 28 September 48 BC), known in English as Pompey (/ˈpɒmpiː/, POM-pee) or Pompey the Great, was a general and statesman of the Roman Republic. He played a significant role in the transformation of Rome from republic to empire. Early in his career, he was a partisan and protégé of the Roman general and dictator Sulla; later, he became the political ally, and finally the enemy, of Julius Caesar.
For other uses, see Pompey (disambiguation) and Gnaeus Pompeius (disambiguation). Not to be confused with Pompeii or Pompei.
Pompey
28 September 48 BC (aged 57)
Military commander and politician
Consul (70, 55, 52 BC)
- Antistia (86–82 BC, divorced)
- Aemilia (82 BC, her death)
- Mucia Tertia (79–61 BC, divorced)
- Julia (59–54 BC, her death)
- Cornelia Metella (52–48 BC, his death)
- Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo (father)
3 Triumphs
A member of the senatorial nobility, Pompey entered into a military career while still young. He rose to prominence serving the dictator Sulla as a commander in the civil war of 83–81 BC. Pompey's success as a general while young enabled him to advance directly to his first consulship without following the traditional cursus honorum (the required steps to advance in a political career). He was elected as consul on three occasions (70, 55, 52 BC). He celebrated three triumphs, served as a commander in the Sertorian War, the Third Servile War, the Third Mithridatic War, and in various other military campaigns. Pompey's early success earned him the cognomen Magnus – "the Great" – after his boyhood hero Alexander the Great. His adversaries gave him the nickname adulescentulus carnifex ("teenage butcher") for his ruthlessness.[1]
In 60 BC, Pompey joined Crassus and Caesar in the informal political alliance known as the First Triumvirate, cemented by Pompey's marriage with Caesar's daughter, Julia. After the deaths of Julia and Crassus (in 54 and 53 BC), Pompey switched to the political faction known as the optimates—a conservative faction of the Roman Senate. Pompey and Caesar then began contending for leadership of the Roman state in its entirety, eventually leading to Caesar's Civil War. Pompey was defeated at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC, and he sought refuge in Ptolemaic Egypt, where he was assassinated by the courtiers of Ptolemy XIII.
Generalship[edit]
Pompey's military glory was second to none for two decades, yet his skills were occasionally criticized by some of his contemporaries. Sertorius or Lucullus, for instance, were especially critical.[138] Pompey's tactics were usually efficient, albeit not particularly innovative or imaginative, and they could prove insufficient against greater tacticians. However, Pharsalus was his only decisive defeat.[139] At times, he was reluctant to risk an open battle. While not extremely charismatic, Pompey could display tremendous bravery and fighting skills on the battlefield, which inspired his men.[139] While being a superb commander, Pompey also earned a reputation for stealing other generals' victories.[140]
On the other hand, Pompey is usually considered an outstanding strategist and organizer, who could win campaigns without displaying genius on the battlefield, but simply by constantly outmaneuvering his opponents and gradually pushing them into a desperate situation.[139] Pompey was a great forward planner, and had tremendous organizational skill, which allowed him to devise grand strategies and operate effectively with large armies.[141] During his campaigns in the east, he relentlessly pursued his enemies, choosing the ground for his battles.[142][143]
Above all, he was often able to adapt to his enemies. On many occasions, he acted very swiftly and decisively, as he did during his campaigns in Sicily and Africa, or against the Cilician pirates. During the Sertorian war, on the other hand, Pompey was beaten several times by Sertorius. Therefore, he decided to resort to a war of attrition, in which he would avoid open battles against his chief opponent but instead try to gradually regain the strategic advantage by capturing his fortresses and cities and defeating his junior officers.[139] In some instances, Sertorius showed up and forced Pompey to abandon a siege, only to see him strike somewhere else. This strategy was not spectacular, but it led to constant territorial gains and did much to demoralize the Sertorian forces. By 72 BC, the year of his assassination, Sertorius was already in a desperate situation and his troops were deserting. Against Perpenna, a tactician far inferior to his former commander-in-chief, Pompey decided to revert to a more aggressive strategy and he scored a decisive victory that effectively ended the war.
Against Caesar too, his strategy was sound. During the campaign in Greece, he managed to regain the initiative, join his forces to that of Metellus Scipio (something that Caesar wanted to avoid) and trap his enemy. His strategic position was hence much better than that of Caesar and he could have starved Caesar's army to death.[141] However, he was finally compelled to fight an open battle by his allies, and his conventional tactics proved no match to those of Caesar (who also commanded the more experienced troops).
Literary heritage[edit]
Pompey was so striking a figure, and his fall so dramatic, that his story became the subject of frequent literary treatment. In the century after his death, the civil war between himself and Caesar was retold in Lucan's epic De Bello Civili, now known as the Pharsalia after the culminating battle. In the poem's final sections, however, Pompey's vengeful ghost returns to possess those responsible for his murder in Egypt and bring about their death.[144]
In Renaissance Britain, too, several plays returned to the subject of "Caesar and Pompey", including George Chapman'sThe Wars of Pompey and Caesar (c. 1604). Another contemporary treatment by Thomas Kyd, Cornelia, or Pompey the Great, his faire Cornelia's tragedy (1594), was a translation from the French of Robert Garnier.[145] Later in France, Pompey's story was told without the character appearing onstage in Pierre Corneille's La Mort de Pompée (1643) and this too had English adaptations: as Pompey (1663) by Catherine Philips, as Pompey the Great by Edmund Waller and others in 1664,[146] and later as The Death of Pompey (1724) by Colley Cibber.
Later in the 18th century, Pompey is made the recipient of a 'heroical epistle' in rhyming couplets from a supposed former lover in John Hervey's "Flora to Pompey".[147][148] He also figures in narrative poems of the 19th century. John Edmund Reade's "The Vale of Tempe" records the fugitive's desperate appearance as glimpsed by a bystander in the Greek valley;[149] his arrival in Egypt is related by Alaric Watts in "The Death of Pompey the Great",[150] and the ruined column raised to mark the site of his killing outside Alexandria is described by Nicholas Michell in Ruins of Many Lands.[151] These were followed by John Masefield's prose drama The Tragedy of Pompey the Great of 1910, covering the period from his decision to fight Caesar to his assassination in Egypt.[152] The play was later filmed for television in 1950 for the BBC Sunday Night Theatre.[153]
Pompey's career is recapitulated a century later in series of historical novels. In Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome, Pompey is mainly featured in Books III-V, covering his rise to prominence through to his betrayal and murder in Egypt.[154] Pompey is also a recurring character in Steven Saylor's Roma Sub Rosa crime fiction novels, where he brushes shoulders with Gordianus, the main protagonist of the series.[155] Another fiction series in which Pompey plays a part in the historical background is Robert Harris's trilogy of the life of Cicero.[156]