Pompey

Also known as: Cneius Pompeius / Cneius Pompey / Cneius Pompey the Great / Pompey the Great · Family: Roman · Role: general · First appears: Julius Caesar 19

Pompey was instructed in rhetoric by Lucius Octacilius Pilitus and later resumed declaiming during the civil war to prepare against Caius Curio. In Julius Caesar 19, Julius Caesar won him to his side against the senate, reconciled him with Marcus Crassus after their long political quarrel, and formed an agreement with both that no government measure opposed by any of them should pass. After Vettius declared that others had solicited him to assassinate Pompey, Julius Caesar strengthened their alliance by giving him Julia in marriage and consulting him first in senate debates: “After this new alliance, he began, upon any debates in the senate, to ask Pompey’s opinion first”. Julius Caesar later offered Octavia to Pompey to preserve their understanding, while Pompey was also married to Mucia.

When conflict with Julius Caesar came, Pompey fled to Brundusium intending to cross the sea and commanded an army in Spain through Marcus Petreius, Lucius Afranius, and Marcus Varro. Julius Caesar overwhelmed that army, and the two became enemies; at Pharsalia, Caesar defeated Pompey, who was then murdered while fleeing to Alexandria. Caesar had earlier extracted nearly six thousand talents from Ptolemy in the names of himself and Pompey, later wrote of the civil war with Pompey, and had appointed Pompey his heir in earlier wills. Pompey’s military relationships also included his victory over Mithridates and opposition to Pharnaces.

In the later struggle with Augustus, Pompey blockaded the sea supply, prompting a temporary peace during a famine, but Augustus defeated him between Mylae and Naulochus and began the Sicilian war against him. Augustus later removed Pompey’s statue from the senate-house, while Menas received citizenship for betraying Pompey’s fleet. Pompey was related on his mother’s side to Marcus Atius Balbus, was the parent of Sextus Pompeius, and employed the admirals Demochares and Apollophanes. Lenaeus, his freedman, attended him on most expeditions; Curtius Nicia, once his intimate friend, was forbidden his house after Pompey became indignant at notes carried from Caius Memmius. Pompey died along with his sons.