Pompey the Great: Rome's rival to Caesar

Pompey reached the top of Roman politics through a series of extraordinary commands. He raised a private army at twenty-three, celebrated two triumphs while still a knight who had never held a magistracy, and became consul in 70 BC without the usual career. His war with Caesar ended at the Battle of Pharsalus, the decisive battle of Rome's civil wars of the 40s BC, and he was murdered in Egypt the same year.¹

Where did Pompey come from?

Gnaeus Pompeius was born on 29 September 106 BC, a date in the pre-Julian Roman calendar. Pliny the Elder, quoting the official records, says his third triumph was held on his birthday, the day before the Kalends of October, and Velleius Paterculus says he died on the eve of his birthday, in his fifty-eighth year.²

His father, Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, commanded for Rome in the Social War against the Italian allies and took the rebel city of Asculum. The family had estates and a large following of clients in Picenum, on Italy's Adriatic side. Velleius writes that from the day the young Pompey put on the toga of manhood he trained as a soldier on his father's staff, and Plutarch also has him on campaign with his father as a youth.³

How did Pompey rise to power?

In 83 BC, aged twenty-three and holding no office, Pompey raised three legions in Picenum among his father's veterans and clients and brought them to Lucius Sulla, who had landed in Italy to fight the Marian regime. Sulla then sent him against the Marians in Sicily and Africa. Pompey won both campaigns in 82 and 81 BC and had the captured Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, three times consul, put to death before his tribunal.⁴

Back from Africa he demanded a triumph. Sulla at first refused, because Pompey was still a knight who had won his victories without holding any magistracy, but in the end he gave way. In these years Pompey also took the name Magnus, “the Great”: Plutarch links it to his return from Africa, and Appian says he earned it by his military exploits.⁵

He then forced his way into a command in Spain against the Marian general Quintus Sertorius by keeping his army under arms. The war went badly at first: Sertorius took the town of Lauron under his eyes and beat him on the river Sucro, where Pompey was wounded. Only after Sertorius was murdered by his own officer Marcus Perperna did Pompey defeat Perperna and end the war.⁶

Back in Italy he celebrated a second triumph, for Spain, while still a knight, and the next day began the consulship of 70 BC with Crassus. He had never been quaestor or praetor, and Appian notes that he was only thirty-four. As consuls they restored the powers of the tribunes of the plebs that Sulla had cut back.⁷

What was Pompey famous for?

The pirates, 67 BC. Pirates were raiding the coasts of Italy when the tribune Aulus Gabinius carried a law giving Pompey command against them, with authority over the sea and the coasts up to fifty miles inland. Pompey divided the Mediterranean into sectors, each under a legate with its own squadron, and finished off the last pirate strongholds on the coast of Cilicia. Plutarch says the war was over in less than three months; Cicero, speaking the next year, says Pompey prepared at the end of winter, began in early spring and finished by midsummer. Many captured pirates were resettled in towns away from the sea instead of being executed.⁸

Mithridates and the East, 66 to 62 BC. In 66 BC a law proposed by the tribune Gaius Manilius transferred the war against Mithridates VI of Pontus from Lucius Lucullus to Pompey. He defeated Mithridates, accepted the surrender of King Tigranes of Armenia, who kept his throne as a friend of Rome, and campaigned among the peoples of the Caucasus. He then reorganized the region: Syria became a Roman province for the first time, and Pontus was added to the empire.⁹

The third triumph, 61 BC. When he returned to Italy, Pompey dismissed his army at Brundisium, against the fears of many that he would march on Rome with it. His triumph of 61 BC lasted two days and was held on his birthday. It was his third: he had now triumphed over Africa, Europe and Asia.¹⁰

What was Pompey's role in the First Triumvirate?

The Senate's leaders, Lucullus among them, blocked the ratification of Pompey's eastern settlement and land for his veterans. Pompey therefore made a private pact with Julius Caesar and Marcus Crassus, the alliance known as the First Triumvirate, formed in 60 or 59 BC. Caesar, as consul in 59 BC, got Pompey's measures through, and Pompey married Caesar's daughter Julia.¹¹

The partners renewed the pact at Luca in 56 BC, and Pompey and Crassus were consuls together again in 55 BC. Then the alliance came apart. Julia died in childbirth in 54 BC, and Crassus was killed fighting the Parthians in 53 BC.¹²

In 52 BC, after the killing of the demagogue Publius Clodius had set off rioting in Rome, Pompey was made sole consul, without a colleague, and used the office to curb electoral corruption. Velleius saw this honor as the step that did most to alienate him from Caesar.¹³

Why did Pompey lose the civil war against Caesar?

Early in 49 BC the Senate ordered Caesar to give up his command, and Caesar crossed the Rubicon into Italy. Pompey withdrew from Brundisium across the Adriatic to Epirus, to build a larger army in Greece and call on the provinces and kings of the East for help.¹⁴

In 48 BC Caesar tried to blockade Pompey's army near Dyrrachium, on the Adriatic coast, but Pompey broke through Caesar's lines and inflicted a serious defeat on him. Caesar withdrew into Thessaly, and Pompey followed.¹⁵ › Pompey vs Caesar

Pharsalus, 48 BC. In Thessaly Pompey joined forces with his father-in-law Quintus Metellus Scipio and, pressed by the senators in his camp, offered battle near Pharsalus. Caesar puts Pompey's army at about 45,000 men with 7,000 cavalry, against his own 22,000 men and 1,000 horse. Appian, following the Roman authorities he trusted most, gives Caesar about 22,000 men, 1,000 of them cavalry, and Pompey more than twice as many, about 7,000 of them cavalry. Pompey's plan rested on his cavalry, and when Caesar's reserve cohorts drove it off, his army broke. Pompey rode back to his camp and fled when it was stormed.¹⁶ › Battle of Pharsalus, 48 BC

Caesar's own account puts the Pompeian dead at about 15,000 and the prisoners at more than 24,000. Asinius Pollio, an officer on Caesar's side, gave a far lower figure of 6,000 dead, as both Plutarch and Appian report.¹⁷

How did Pompey die?

After Pharsalus Pompey sailed to Mytilene on Lesbos, where he took his wife Cornelia on board, and then to Egypt, hoping for help from the young King Ptolemy XIII, whose father had owed his restoration to Pompey. The king's advisers, among them his tutor Theodotus, decided that killing Pompey was the safest way to win Caesar's favor.¹⁸

Off Pelusium he was invited into a small boat. Caesar names the killers as Achillas, the king's commander, and Lucius Septimius, a Roman officer who had served under Pompey, and Cassius Dio also names Septimius and Achillas. Pompey was stabbed before he could reach the shore. His head was cut off and kept for Caesar, and his body was left on the shore, where it was given a humble burial.¹⁹

Britannica dates the murder to 28 September 48 BC in the pre-Julian calendar, the eve of Pompey's birthday, which is where Velleius puts it. The other ancient writers differ by a day or so: Plutarch puts it on the day after his birthday, and Cassius Dio on the anniversary of his great triumph, which Pliny dates to the birthday itself. By these dates Pompey was 57, in his fifty-eighth year, as Velleius and Appian also put it; Plutarch makes him 59.²⁰

When Caesar arrived in Egypt he was shown Pompey's head. Plutarch and Appian say he could not bear to look at it; Cassius Dio says he wept over it, but thought his grief was put on. Caesar later had Achillas and the eunuch Pothinus executed.²¹

How is Pompey remembered?

Pompey's sons and allies fought on in Africa and Spain without him. Ancient writers judged him in different ways. Appian saw him as the man who had fought Rome's greatest wars and made the greatest additions to its empire. Velleius Paterculus, writing under Tiberius, praised his integrity but said he could not bear to see anyone his equal.²²

The poet Lucan, writing about a century after Pharsalus, has Cato say in his lament for Pompey that true belief in Roman freedom had died long before, under Marius and Sulla, but that with Pompey gone even the pretense of it was dead.²³ › Julius Caesar

Meet his rival Julius Caesar and the earlier army reformer Gaius Marius, read the full story of the Battle of Pharsalus, or explore the other great commanders of ancient Rome.