Pompey always maintained that simplicity in his habits which cost him no great effort; for he was naturally temperate and orderly in his desires. (18)

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (106 to 48 BC)

This is one of the longest lives, with 80 chapters. Pompey the Great was a boy wonder general, who racked up a series of military victories, both in Rome’s civil wars and against external enemies. He was awarded unprecedented military power to fight the pirates and then prosecute the war in Parthia in the 60s BC, with the result that a growing number of critics began to think him a threat to the state.

In 60 BC Pompey entered into an uneasy alliance with the two other most powerful men in Rome, Julius Caesar (who had himself been awarded extraordinary and extended powers to fight his long war in Gaul) and Marcus Crassus (the richest man in Rome) in order to bribe and strong-arm their way to successive consulships and continually renewed generalships. It was called the triumvirate.

In the later 50s the triumvirate collapsed because a) Crassus was killed on campaign in Parthia and b) Caesar’s beloved daughter, Julia, who he had given to Pompey, died young, thus breaking the family tie between them. It left Pompey and Caesar as the two most powerful men in the state, both with devoted armies behind them, eyeing each other nervously. When his political opponents in Rome tried to end Caesar’s command in Gaul he marched with his army into Italy in 49 BC, triggering a civil war against Pompey and the army of Italy, which lasted from 49 to 45, ending with complete victory for Caesar. But by this stage Pompey was already dead, having been murdered in Egypt, fleeing from a military defeat in Greece, at which point the Pompey part of the story ends.

The life

(1) Contrasts the extreme unpopularity of the father, Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo (135 to 87), hated by his soldiers for his greed and cruelty, with the tremendous popularity of the son. Plutarch says the son was persuasive, trustworthy and tactful. Now all of this contrasts strongly with the portrait of Pompey given in the Life of Crassus, where he is made to be tactless, clumsy and anti-social. This raises the strong possibility that the characters Plutarch paints are not historically accurate or even consistent across his own biographies, but that Plutarch changes and rearranges them in the context of each life to make each life more dramatic. Artistic licence. Plutarch did warn us hat he feels more like a painter than a historian.

(2) He had a boyish youthful grace which people found attractive leading many to nickname him Alexander, after the boy wonder conqueror. Many rumours of his love affairs, for example the story of Flora the old courtesan who boasted that she never left his company without bitemarks.

(3) How young Pompey quelled an attempt by mutinous troops to murder his father and then talked round the troops.

(4) On his father’s death in 87 Pompey was put on trial for misappropriation of public funds but defended himself ably and was acquitted, in fact the judge in the case, Antistius, offered him his daughter in marriage.

(5) Plutarch associates Pompey directly with Cinna‘s death, saying that Pompey went into hiding but people thought Cinna had ordered him killed, so soldiers rose up against Cinna and a centurion pursued and killed him. 84 BC. By contrast the history books say Cinna was murdered by his own troops who mutinied rather than be sent across the Adriatic to fight Sulla in Greece.

(6) Gnaeus Papirius Carbo replaced Cinna as ruler of Rome, and Pompey, not yet 23, raised an army against him in the provinces and marched to Rome to support Sulla.

(7) Pompey defeated in quick succession the forces of Carinas, Cloelius, and Brutus, then persuaded the army of Scipio the consul to come over to him, then defeated a force sent by Carbo himself. Wunderkind.

(8) When Sulla’s army approaches Pompey ensures his looks smart and Sulla greets him at Imperator and later showed great marks of respect. When Sulla wanted to send Pompey to Gaul to help Metellus, Pompey very tactfully said he didn’t want to tread on the older man’s toes but would go if requested. He was requested, he did go and performed great feats.

(9) Sulla realised how valuable Pompey was and, once he was established in power in Rome (82 BC) he and his wife Metella prevail on the young man to divorce Antistia and marry Aemilia, the step-daughter of Sulla, even though she was pregnant with another man’s child. Political marriages. [In the same spirit Sulla tried to make Julius Caesar part with his wife, but Caesar refused and was so scared of reprisals that he went into hiding.] This was cruel on Antistia whose father had been murdered by Marius’s son, Marcus, for being a partisan of Pompey’s and whose mother had killed herself in response. Anyway, fate is fate, and Amelia had barely been installed in Pompey’s house before she died giving birth to the other man’s child.

(10) Once Sulla is secure in power in Rome, Pompey was charged with mopping up outstanding noble survivors. He was harshly judged for his delaying treatment of Carbo, 4 times consul, and but dealt mercifully with Himera and Sthenis. Perpenna was occupying Sicily until Pompey headed that way, at which he abandoned it and headed for Spain (where he was to become a grudging lieutenant to that other Marian exile, Sertorius).

(11) Sulla sends Pompey to Libya to fight Domitius Ahenobarbus. Pompey lands with a large force and defeats Domitius in a rainstorm. He arranges treaties with the cities of Libya and then invades into Numidia. It is said all this took him just 40 days and he was only 24 years old.

(12) Back at his base in Utica Pompey receives a letter from Sulla telling him to send his legions back to Italy which upsets Pompey, but his army threaten to mutiny in order to stay with him. When Pompey returns to Rome the people flock out to see him, who many are already calling Magnus or ‘the Great’ and Sulla thinks it politic to also acclaim Pompey as the great. According to Plutarch Pompey himself was one of the last to use this agnomen.

(14) Pompey asks for a triumph but Sulla refuses, saying he hasn’t even been a praetor yet let alone a consul. This was the context of Pompey allegedly muttering that more people worship the rising than the setting sun which, when he heard it, Sulla was so impressed by Pompey’s sheer cheek that he changed his mind and let Pompey have his triumph (probably in 81 BC). Pompey could easily have been elected to the Senate but it didn’t interest him so he didn’t try.

(15) Sulla resented Pompey’s popularity with the people but rarely let it show. He did, though, remark when Pompey put his name behind Lepidus‘s campaign to be elected consul in 78 BC, that Pompey had ensured that the worst man alive (Lepidus) secured more votes than the best (Catulus). Later that year Sulla died

(16) Lepidus, elected consul in 78, demanded a second consulship for the following year and, when it was refused, raised an army along with the sons of the old Marian cause. Pompey, as so often, was tasked with quelling the rebellion, defeated Lepidus at Cosa and Lepidus withdrew into Sardinia where he died the same year. Many of his supporters escaped to Spain where they joined the Marian rebel, Sertorius.

(17) Having defeated Lepidus, Pompey refused to disband his army but kept it near Rome. Many deprecated this, but it meant he was ready when the Senate ordered him to Spain to deal with the Marian rebel Sertorius. Pompey took over from Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius who was old and, to general surprise, had become addicted to luxury. This was never a problem for Pompey who was naturally moderate in all things.

(18) Pompey’s arrival in Spain rejuvenated the Roman troops. He wins a victory near Valentia.

(19) The big but inconclusive battle at the river Sucro in which he is wounded in the hand. Pompey’s respect for Metellus. The success of Sertorius’s hit and run guerrilla tactics.

(20) In 74, running low on money, Pompey wrote a famous letter to the Senate asking for more resources or saying he’d be forced to march home. LucullusPlutarch’s life of Lucullus was consul and did everything he could to get the money assigned. This was for personal reasons because he wanted to be assigned command of the army heading East to fight King Mithridates VI of Pontus (the region along the south coast of the Black sea), and didn’t want Pompey to come home and snaffle this very desirable gig.

In 73 Sertorius was murdered at a dinner party by his resentful lieutenant Perpenna. Perpenna then took to the field against Pompey but had none of his victim’s agility and strategy. Pompey engaged the rebels in plain battle and slaughtered them. Perpenna and other Roman nobles were brought before him, and Pompey had them all executed.

There’s a story that Perpenna offered Pompey Sertorius’s correspondence with lots of leading figures in Rome who had been corresponding with him about overthrowing Sulla in the popular cause – but Pompey didn’t want to revive the civil war which was only just over and so burned the correspondence unread.

(21) Pompey went on to arrange peace in Spain, before returning to Italy in 71. He arrived at the height of the Spartacus rebellion, to the great irritation of Crassus who wanted to finish it off before Pompey took the credit. So Crassus hurried up and arranged a final set piece battle with Spartacus, at which he massacred the insurgents. Yet Pompey still managed to get credit because about 5,000 escaped from the main battle and Pompey engaged with them and slaughtered them. Then wrote a letter to the Senate saying Crassus certainly defeated Spartacus in battle but he, Pompey, scotched the cause once and for all.

There was widespread fear that, not disbanding his army and with so many successes, Pompey might turn into another Sulla. But he didn’t and he went out of his way to ingratiate himself with the people, for example supporting the law to have the powers which Sulla had taken away from the people’s tribunes restored to them.

(22) His influence is indicated by the way that Marcus Crassus, the richest man in Rome, only considered putting himself forward for consul if Pompey would back him, which he did. Both men were elected consuls in 70 BC. The story of Pompey appearing in person before the two censors to resign his military command.

(23) However, the pair spent a lot of their consul year at daggers drawn. As the year of their joint office neared its end a man climbed on the public platform they were sharing and said Jupiter had appeared in a dream and told him the consuls mustn’t lay down their office till they’d become friends again. So Crassus stepped forward, took Pompey’s hand and praised him to the crowd. Having laid down his office, Pompey was seen less and less in public, and then only surrounded by a crowd to boost his sense of magnificence.

(24) Pirates A digression giving background on the rise of the pirates around the Mediterranean – caused in part because the Romans are devoting their energies to civil wars – till the pirates were said to have 1,000 ships and to have captured 400 cities. Their flaunting their power, wearing fine clothes and decorated ships was offensive. But in more practical terms the pirate plague was driving up prices and causing discontent.

(25) In 67 the tribune Aulus Gabinius proposed a law giving Pompey extraordinary power to crush the pirates, which led to impassioned speeches for and against in the Senate. But it was a very popular idea with the people.

(26) Pompey was awarded the commission divided the Mediterranean into quadrants which he assigned to subordinates tasked with sweeping them clean. In an astonishing 40 days he had routed the pirates and ended the problem in the western Med.

(27) In Rome the consul Piso conspired against Pompey, trying to limit the funding of the project and releasing ship’s crews early, so Pompey interrupted his campaign to anchor at Brindisi, march to Rome and sort things out.

Then he returned to sea, sailing East, with a stopover at Athens. Pompey closed in on the pirates’ bases in Cilicia but then amazed everyone by capturing but then setting free the pirates. He treated all of them leniently.

(28) Finally he tackles the hard core pirates at a headland off Cilicia. Pompey drove them off their boats and into a fortress which he besieged till the pirates, starving, surrendered. In less than 3 months the entire pirate problem had been sorted. He had captured 20,000 prisoners. Rather than punish them, though, Pompey very wisely resettled the pirates and their families in Greece and Asia Minor, in cities which he then granted extra land, figuring that good example, honest work and opportunity would tame them.

(29) Pompey’s dispute with Metellus (relative of the Metellus he fought alongside in Spain) who was fighting the pirates in Crete but whose authority Pompey undermined, taking the side of the pirates. Much criticism.

(30) With the end of the pirate campaign in 66 BC, one of the tribunes of the plebs, Manilius, proposes a law giving Pompey extraordinary power in the East to prosecute the war against Mithridates, taking command away from Lucius Licinius Lucullus. Debate, opposition from the nobles, but passed by the people. Pompey pretends to be vexed by the endless tasks he is given but was in reality pleased.

(31) So Pompey rallies his legions and sails for Asia Minor. Here he marches through the land, leaving nothing undisturbed that Lucullus had done. Eventually the two meet, with their armies, in Galatia. Both sets of lictors have put wreaths on their fasces but after a weary march Pompey’s are faded, so Lucullus’s lictors put their fresh wreaths on Pompey’s lictors’ fasces – which was remembered long afterwards as symbolising how Pompey had come to steal glory from Lucullus who had done all the hard work.

He’s referring to the way Pompey had a track record of arriving at the end of military campaigns and stealing the glory from, for example, Metellus in Spain and Crassus against Spartacus. Lucullus apparently compared Pompey to a lazy carrion-bird, that alights on bodies that others had killed and mocks him for having won a triumph (in 71 BC) for appearing at the end of the 3 year war against Spartacus and wiping out a relatively small number of stragglers. Right place, right time.

The two successful generals try to be civil, but behind each other’s backs, Pompey criticises Lucullus for his greed and looting and Lucullus criticises Pompey for his lust for power.

(32) Pompey’s campaign against Mithridates who shows the same ability to endlessly escape from battles and traps as he did against Lucullus. A battle fought by moonlight where the Romans massacre 10,000 Parthians.

(33) Pompey discovers young Tigranes of Armenia is in rebellion against his father, Tigranes king of kings, so allies and marches with him. The elder Tigranes comes to submit and is going to obeise himself when Pompey raises him up, sits him at his side, says he can retain his kingship and remaining provinces but a) those won by Lucullus will become Roman b) he must pay an indemnity of 6,000 talents, to which Tigranes agrees. Young Tigranes violently disagrees, insults Pompey and is put in chains. Phraates, king of the Parthians, sends an embassy suggesting the Euphrates should be the border between Roman territory and Parthian, and Pompey agrees.

(34) Pompey marches north towards and the Caucasus in search of Mithridates, and is attacked by native peoples, first the Albanians then the Iberians, both of which he thrashes.

(35) Mithridates had headed west and Pompey wanted to follow him but heard that the Albanians had rebelled again so crossed the river Cyrnus with difficulty, then marches across dry land carrying 10,000 waterskins and then crushed the Albanian army consisting of 60,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry. As always, with numbers, a healthy dose of scepticism. Rumour that the Amazons fought with the Albanians but no women’s bodies were found. Note on the location and customs of the Amazons who are said to live in the Caucasus.

(36) Pompey sets off for Hyrcania but is driven back by the wild snakes. The kings of the Elymaeans and the Medes sent ambassadors to him, and he wrote them a friendly answer. The Parthian king had burst into Gordyene and was plundering the subjects of Tigranes so Pompey he sent an armed force under Afranius.

Pompey is sent all the concubines of Mithridates but doesn’t keep them, sending them back to their homes. Folk tale of one of the concubines, Stratonice, who was daughter to a very poor old man. When Mithridates took her as a concubine the old man woke up to find his house overflowing with treasure and servants. This Stratonice had been left in charge of one of Mithridates’ fortresses but handed it over to Pompey who, chastely, handed them over to the questors to be sent back to Rome.

(37) In the castle of Caenum Pompey comes across a cache of Mithridates’ correspondence showing, among other things, the people he’d had poisoned, including one of his own sons.

(38) While Mithridates was still alive and at large with a big force, Pompey did what he’d criticised Lucullus for doing and began to administer his provinces, having meetings with kings, issuing edicts and so on.

In his campaigns Pompey had reached some of the limits of the known world. In Spain he had reached the Atlantic (which the ancients thought was the Great Ocean surrounding one unified land mass). In North Africa he had also marched as far as the Outer Sea. In the East he had nearly reached Hyrcania. Now he wanted to march south through Arabia to the Red Sea.

(39) Pompey ordered a blockade of Mithridates in his base in the Bosporus (not the Bosphorus by modern Istanbul, but the area round the Crimea in the north Black Sea) and set off south. He annexed Syria for Rome and then Judaea, and made a prisoner of Aristobulus the king. He acted more and more like a mighty sovereign, dispensing justice to lower kings. He was asked to arbitrate a dispute between the kings of Parthia and Armenia. However many of his associates and lieutenants were grasping and corrupt.

(40) A notable hanger-on of Pompey’s was the Greek would-be philosopher Demetrius, who was impertinent and greedy. He used the treasure he looted in the East to buy big properties in Rome including the ‘gardens of Demetrius’. By contrast Pompey always lived in a very modest house.

(41) Pompey was on his way to deal with the king of Petra when messengers arrive bearing the news that Mithridates is finally dead. He killed himself after the revolt of his son, Pharnaces in 63 BC.

Locked up by his son, Pharnaces, Mithridates has his two young daughters poisoned then asks his bodyguard Bituitus to kill him.

The new king, Pharnaces, writes to Pompey saying he wants peace and sends the corpses of his father and entourage. Pompey is amazed at the splendour of the dead king’s accoutrements, most of which are subsequently stolen.

(42) Pompey winds up his affairs in Asia Minor then heads back to Rome in what turns into a kind of triumphal tour, stopping to be publicly praised in Mytilene, Rhodes and Athens. As he gets closer to Italy he takes more serious the rumours that his wife, Mucia, had been living a wild and debauched life, and so divorced her, winning the enmity of her family.

(43) It’s 63 BC. There is much paranoia in Rome that Pompey is returning to conquer the city as Sulla had done in 82. Crassus flees the city with his children. But on arriving at Brundisium Pompey dismissed his army, telling them to return to their homes, and continued to Rome accompanied only by close friends and entourage. This won him huge popularity and crowds turned out to cheer him in every town. He really was a golden boy (well man – aged 43).

(44) A general was not supposed to enter Rome until his triumph. Pompey asked for a dispensation to help the campaign for consul of M. Pupius Piso but Cato argued against it and it was blocked. Pompey admired Cato and suggested he marry one of Cato’s nieces and have his son marry the other one, but Cato saw through this form of bribery and refused. Nonetheless Pompey spent a fortune bribing the voters to elect Afranius consul in 60.

(45) September 61, Pompey’s awesome triumph which took 2 days. Not only was it awesome in terms of territory conquered, kings defeated and revenue brought in but Pompey’s three triumphs had been one in Africa, one in Europe and one in Asia, as if he had conquered the whole world.

(46) If he had died at this point, Pompey would have gone down as one of the greatest generals in history. Instead he was to get mixed up in politics and the immense reputation he had won would in the end go to empower his rival Julius Caesar.

Lucullus and Cato band against Pompey and, in response, Pompey found himself allying with an unpleasant character, Publius Clodius Pulcher, who dragged his name into the mud and involved him in the shameful exile of Cicero (in 58).

(47) Caesar had returned from Gaul and, seeing that Crassus and Pompey were opponents and he couldn’t ally with one without alienating the other, had the bright idea of allying with both and persuading them to join in a coalition, the triumvirate, to promote all their interests, established at secret meetings in 60. Caesar was elected consul for 59. In the same year to everyone’s surprise Pompey now married Julius Caesar’s young daughter, Julia.

(48) Pompey now organises street gangs to terrorise the opponents of his plan to get land made available for his army veterans. His strongest opponent is Cato’s son-in-law, Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus. A basket of dung is emptied over his head, his lictors are beaten up. The people are cowed into passing Pompey’s law. In 59 Publius Vatinius as tribune of the plebs proposed the lex Vatinia, which granted Caesar Cisalpine Gaul and IIlyricum for five years. At the instigation of Pompey and Piso the Senate added the province of Transalpine Gaul. The consuls for the following year were to be Piso, the father-in‑law of Caesar, and Gabinius, the most extravagant of Pompey’s flatterers. That is how the triumvirate administered their power.

Of their opponents Bibulus hid in his villa, Lucullus retired from public life altogether but Cato continued haranguing them in the Senate. In fact Pompey was soon seduced by his wife into retiring into private life. Caesar had disappeared off to Gaul so the political agenda was driven by Piso who got Cicero driven into exile (58) and then had Cato sent as governor to Cyprus. (Neither of these events are described in any detail, maybe because they’re dealt with in the respective lives.)

(49) Clodius then turned his scurrilous abuse against Pompey who regretted his acquiescence in Cicero’s exile. When Cicero was recalled he helped steer the passage of a corn law which placed Pompey in absolute control of Rome’s harbours, trading-places, distributions of crops — in a word, navigation and agriculture. Pompey really was the go-to guy to get things fixed.

(50) A brief note on Pompey’s success in sailing to Sicily, Sardinia and Africa to get grain. As usual Plutarch isn’t at all interested in the details but tells an improving story about Pompey’s words of encouragement to the captain of the fleet when a big storm arises as they’re about to set sail.

(51) Plutarch explains how Caesar’s time in Gaul was spent not only fighting the various tribes but in readying his army for civil strife, and in continually sending money and treasure back to Rome to bribe officials and the people to his side. Witness the conference he called at Luca in 66 to bolster the triumvirate which was attended by Pompey, Crassus, 200 men of senatorial rank and 120 proconsuls and praetors. The deal struck was that Caesar would send back enough soldiers to ensure the election of Crassus and Pompey as consuls for the following year on condition they passed a law getting Caesar’s command in Gaul extended.

(52) Cato, now back in Rome, encouraged his brother-in-law Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus to stand for the consulship of 55 but, true to the triumvirate pact, Pompey organised a gang to attack him and his entourage in the forum, killing his torchbearer and wounding Cato himself as he went to protect Domitius. It’s like the street fighting in Renaissance Italy or, more grimly, in Weimar Germany.

At the expiry of his consulship Crassus set off to be governor of Syria with authority over the entire East. Meanwhile Pompey opened his vast and splendid circus with a series of spectaculars, the one which stuck in everyone’s minds being a battle against elephants which horrified the spectators (including Cicero who records it in a letter).

(53) Pompey was criticised for his uxoriousness i.e. retiring to his villa to enjoy life with his young wife. She was devoted to him, maybe for the simple reason that among Roman men he was remarkably faithful. He was also handsome and had charming manners. Her devotion is demonstrated by the occasion on which a fight broke out in the forum and his toga was splashed with blood. His servants carried it home to be cleaned but when Julia saw it she fainted and miscarried. This sounds like an idealised folk story. Because for the purposes of the narrative she quickly has to be gotten pregnant again and nine months later, miscarry and die (in 54 BC). Pompey was distraught and wanted her buried at a family villa but the people insisted she was buried in the Campus Martius.

Plutarch then skips very quickly over Crassus’s defeat and death in Parthia (presumably because it’s dealt with at such massive length in his life of Crassus) skipping on to the main point which is that these 2 events marked the end of the triumvirate and the unravelling of the working relationship between Caesar and Pompey. He drops into graceful moralising:

So slight a thing is fortune when compared with human nature; for she cannot satisfy its desires, since all that extent of empire and magnitude of wide-stretching domain could not suffice for two men. They had heard and read that the gods​ “divided the universe into three parts, and each got his share of power” and yet they did not think the Roman dominion enough for themselves, who were but two. (53)

Beginning the slide into 25 years of civil war.

(54) The issue almost immediately was whether Caesar would lay down his command. Pompey made speeches pointing out how easily he had given up his command after returning from the East. Pompey tried to get his supporters into positions of power but discovered that Caesar had been quietly doing this for some time. Government became gridlocked and as soon as the following year, 53, a tribune suggested Pompey be made dictator. Elections of consuls stalled in 52 and even opponents such as Cato suggested Pompey be made sole consul, as being better than anarchy.

Pompey approached Cato in a private capacity to give advice, but Cato was typically priggish and said he would continue speaking his mind.

(55) Pompey marries Cornelia, widow of Publius Crassus, the son of Crassus who perished along with his father in Parthia. Critics thought it bad taste to be frolicking with garlands at a time of public crisis. He supervised public life effectively, placing soldiers at trials so they could continue without the usual barracking and intimidation. He was blamed for showing partiality in some trials but overall did a good job and was awarded governorship of his provinces for another five years.

(56) Caesar’s supporters said that he, too, deserved reward, and should have his command in Gaul extended. The suggestion was made that he should be allowed to stand for the consulship in his absence. Conservatives like Cato strongly objected, saying he should relinquish his command and return as an ordinary citizen to canvas.

(57) Pompey had a serious illness at Naples. When he recovered there was widespread rejoicing in that city and then in all the towns he passed through on his way back to Rome. Plutarch says this public support gave him a misleading sense of his own power. Back when the triumvirate was formed Pompey had sent two of the legions assigned to him to Gaul with Caesar. Now he asked for them back and they came commanded by Appius who made slighting comments about Caesar’s abilities. Pompey was fooled into thinking he had widespread support and military strength in Italy.

(58) Caesar based himself near to the border with Italy and intervened extensively in Roman politics, in particular bribing key officials in his favour and sending large blocs of soldiers to swing elections in his favour. A tribune made the suggestion that both generals lay down their arms at the same moment and became private citizens, thus not presenting a threat to the other. Opponents said Caesar was a public enemy and should simply relinquish his command, full stop, as he was not more powerful in the state and in no position to make demands of the senate.

(59) Marcellus announces that Caesar is crossing the Alps with ten legions and goes to see Pompey accompanied by the senate to call on him to save the state. But when Pompey tried to levy troops he was surprised at the poor response and reluctance. One reason was that Mark Anthony read out a letter from Caesar in which he suggested that he and Pompey give up their provinces and their armies and submit themselves to the people’s judgement. Cicero proposed a compromise that Caesar give up most but not all of his provinces and retain just 2 legions while he canvassed for a consulship. Arguments. Shouting.

(60) Now news came that Caesar was marching fast into Italy. Caesar pauses at the river Rubicon because it formed the boundary between his allotted province (Cisalpine Gaul) and Italy proper. In Cisalpine Gaul he was official commander and could do as he pleased. But crossing the river was an illegal act, and represented an invasion and subversion of the law.

Caesar took the decision to lead his army across the river and into Italy with the words ‘the die is cast’. The senate immediately asked Pompey to raise the army he had promised to protect Italy, Rome and them – but were horrified to learn that Pompey would struggle to raise a proper army. The legions Caesar had only recently sent back to him were unlikely to march against their former commander.

(61) Pandemonium in Rome, with endless rumour, an outflow of the panicking rich, an influx of refugees, collapse of magistrate authority and Pompey finding it hard to fix on a strategy. He declared a state of civil war, ordered all the senators to follow him, and that evening left the city.

(62) A few days later Caesar arrived in Rome, occupied it, ransacked the treasury for funds with which to pursue Pompey. Caesar wanted Pompey and his army cleared out of Italy before his army from Spain could arrive to reinforce him. Pompey takes his army to Brundisium, occupies and fortifies it then ferries his army ship by ship across to Albania. Caesar arrives but is held at the city walls for nine days while Pompey sailed.

(63) Caesar had sent a friend of Pompey’s, Numerius, to him with free and fair terms. But Pompey had sailed. Without bloodshed Caesar had become master of Rome and Italy. Now he set about and marched all the way to Spain to recruit the armies based there.

(64) Pompey now rallies an enormous army on lad and navy at sea. He inspires the training by taking part himself, aged 58. So many nobles flocked to him that they were able to recreate the senate.

(65) This senate passed a suggestion of Cato’s that no Roman be killed except in actual battle and no Roman cities subjected. This won even more people over to Pompey’s cause.

Meanwhile Caesar also was showing great clemency. After defeating Pompey’s forces in Spain he freely released the commanders and took the soldiers into his own service then marches back to Italy, to Brundisium and crossed to Oricum. He sent an emissary suggesting they lay down their arms, have a conference and become friends as of old. Pompey dismissed it as a trick. Pompey held the coast and dominated supplies. Caesar was hard pressed.

(66) Pompey’s allies pushed him to engage in open battle but Pompey correctly judged that a) Caesar’s army was more battle hardened after years in Gaul but b) they had less supplies – so he planned a war of attrition. Caesar struck camp and marched into Thessaly. Pompey’s supporters were jubilant and behaved as if they’d already won. He was encouraged to cross back to Italy, take total control of it and Rome. But Pompey didn’t want to a) run away again b) abandon his forces in Greece to Caesar c) bring bloodshed into Italy.

(67) So he chose to pursue Caesar, cutting his lines of communication and depriving him of supplies. Plutarch describes Pompey’s suspicions of Cato, who was with him in his camp but who he suspected would demand he lay down his command the second Caesar was defeated. Plutarch paints a grim picture of the politicking and squabbling among the politicians who had accompanied him and spent all their time criticising his plans. It affected his judgement.

(68) Pompey’s army comes out into the plain of Pharsalia. Various of his lieutenants vow not to return to camp until they had routed the enemy. That evening signs and portents are seen in the sky (as they always are). Pompey dreams he is laying tributes in the temple of Venus who was, of course, Caesar’s ancestor. At dawn Caesar was delighted to learn from his scouts that Pompey was preparing for battle.

(69) Pompey had twice as many men as Caesar, 40,000 to 22,000. But Caesar’s army assembled in quiet and confidence whereas Pompey’s were shouting and milling about in their inexperience.

(70) Plutarch takes a chapter to moralise on the pitiful tragic outcome of greed and folly which saw Roman pitted against Roman, family member against family member, when if they had united they could have conquered Scythia, Parthia even India.

(71) The Battle of Pharsalia 9 August 48 BC. Caesar’s troops scatter Pompey’s cavalry with the tactic of pushing their spears up into their faces. Then encircle Pompey’s infantry who panic.

(72) Caesar’s legions triumphed and pushed on into Pompey’s camp. Pompey left the battlefield to sit in his tent in shock, then rallied his men and rode away. 6,000 were killed. Caesar’s men found Pompey’s tents adorned with garlands, dressed for a feast. Such was their inexperience of battle and foolish hopes.

(73) Pompey escaped with a handful of companions. Plutarch paints him as mournfully reviewing the sudden collapse in his fortunes, the first time he’d ever lost a battle. He escaped to the coast and took a fisherman’s boat to a port where he boarded a merchantman. Its captain, Peticius, just happened to have had a dream the night before in which Pompey came imploring. Now he sculls up in a boat with a handful of companions in poor shape. Peticius takes them aboard and offers them a meal.

(74) They sail to Mytilene to take on board Pompey’s wife and son. He sends them a messenger. In best melodramatic tradition the messenger doesn’t say anything but his tears tell the story and Cornelia flings herself on the ground where she lies a long time motionless. Odd that this is the universal attitude of despair in these texts, compared with our modern stock attitude which would be thrashing around and ranting.

Cornelia is given a speech out of a Greek tragedy bewailing her lot, as wife to Publius Crassus, who met a miserable death in Parthia, and now wishing she had killed herself then and not brought bad luck to Pompey.

(75) Pompey is given a stock speech in reply about Fortune and they are only mortals and might rise again. Cornelia sends for her things. The people of Mytilene want to invite Pompey in but he refuses and says the conqueror will come soon enough. More interesting is the little digression in which Pompey was said to have had a conversation with the local philosopher, Cratippus, about Providence. Plutarch slips in the moral of the entire book:

For when Pompey raised questions about Providence, Cratippus might have answered that the state now required a monarchy because it was so badly administered.

The Romans mismanaged their way into a disastrous civil war.

(76) At its next stop the ship is met by some of Pompey’s navy. This has survived intact and he laments the fact that he didn’t make more use of it but allowed himself to be lured into battle far from the sea. He learns Cato rescued many of the soldiers and is shipping them over to Libya. He has been joined by his lieutenants and 60 or so senators. The plan is to recruit more men from the cities. Emissaries are sent out. Pompey and advisers debate where to hole up while they recuperate their forces. Some argue for Libya, some for far-off Parthia. But the strongest voices are for Egypt which is only three days’ sail ,away and where the young king Ptolemy owes his throne to Pompey.

(77) So they sail south to Egypt in a Seleucian trireme from Cyprus, accompanied by warships and merchant ships. When they arrive they discover Ptolemy is at war with his sister Cleopatra. Ptolemy’s advisers hold a conclave on what to do, led by Potheinus the eunuch. Theodotus the rhetorician wins the day by arguing they should kill Pompey thus pleasing Caesar and removing the threat.

(78) Pompey was in a small boat which had approached the shore. Potheinus and Theodotus deputed the task of receiving him to some Roman soldiers who had gravitated to Ptolemy’s court, Achillas, Septimius and Salvius. When the Romans saw a handful of men coming towards them in an ordinary boat, none of the pomp of the pharaoh, they sensed something was wrong. But as the Egyptian boat came up they and the Romans in it hailed them they saw other boats being manned on the shore. To fly would show lack of confidence and trigger attack. So Pompey embraced his wife who was already weeping as if he were dead, and taking a few servants, Philip and Scythe, stepped into the Egyptian boat.

(79) The men in the boat were cold and distant from Pompey. He took out his notebook to practice the speech to Ptolemy in Greek which he had practiced. As they reached the shore Pompey stretched his arm up to be helped to his feet and Septimius ran him through with a sword from behind, then Achillas and Salvius stabbed him, too. Pompey drew his toga over his face and fell.

(80) From the Roman fleet a mighty groan then they set sail and left before the Egyptian fleet could come out. The Egyptians cut off Pompey’s head and threw his body into the sea. His servant Philip waited till they’d left then scavenged along the shore for enough wood to build a pyre. Along comes an old Roman, a veteran, and offers to help, and so these two poor men built and supervised the burning of one of the greatest Romans of all.

Next day a ship carrying Lucius Lentulus comes into view, he lands and sees the pyre and asks Philip about his master’s fate, and delivers a lament as from a tragedy. Then he was captured by the Egyptians and also put to death.

Plutarch ends his narrative by tying up the loose ends. When Caesar landed and was presented with the head of Pompey he was disgusted, when shown his ring he burst into tears. He had Achillas and Potheinus put to death. King Ptolemy was defeated in battle and disappeared into the interior never to be heard of again. The sophist Theodotus fled but many years later, after Caesar’s assassination, Brutus tracked him down in Asia and had him put to death with many tortures. The ashes of Pompey were taken to his widow who buried them at his country house near Alba.

Related links

• Plutarch’s Life of Pompey online

Roman reviews

• Complete list of my Roman reviews