Pompey the Great
- sulla80
- 20 hours ago
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Pompey’s life (106–48 BCE) was marked by extraordinary military and political achievements that earned him the cognomen Magnus (“the Great”). He rose to prominence as a young general under Sulla, celebrated multiple triumphs across three continents, and formed the First Triumvirate with Julius Caesar and Crassus.
Pompey’s career was also marred by civil war against Caesar, leading to his defeat and untimely death. Today we share a coin of Pompey the Great and take a survey look at his political, military, and personal life and his influence on the founders of the American republic.
Pompey the Great, AR Denarius (3.89g, 18.4mm3h), 48 BCE. Military mint traveling with Pompey in Greece.
Obv: Terentius Varro, proquaestor. VARRO PRO Q, diademed bust of Jupiter right. Rev: MAGN PRO / COS in two lines in exergue, scepter between dolphin swimming right and eagle standing left.
Ref: Crawford 447/1a; HCRI 8; Sydenham 1033; RSC 3.
Struck before the Battle of Pharsalus, this denarius recognized Pompey’s proudest achievements. The obverse presents Jupiter Terminus—guardian of frontiers—evoking the extraordinary pro‑consular command the Senate had just entrusted to Pompey for the defense of the Republic.
The dolphin and an eagle on the reverse face one another across a vertically placed sceptre. The dolphin recalls Pompey’s sweeping victory over the Cilician pirates at sea (66 BCE); the eagle proclaims his triumph on land against Mithradates VI of Pontus (65 BCE). The sceptre does double duty: artistically it separates the two emblems, politically it signals the imperatorial authority granted to a military commander recognized by his legions.
Early Life and Rise to Power
Pompey the Great (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus) was born 106 BCE to a wealthy provincial noble family.
Early fame: In his early 20s he raised a private army for the dictator Sulla and defeated Sulla’s enemies in Sicily and Africa (82–81 BCE). Sulla rewarded him with the nickname “Magnus” (“the Great”) and a marriage to his step‑daughter.
Reputation: Soldiers hailed him as Magnus and Imperator; enemies, shocked by his executions of surrendered leaders, dubbed him the “teenage butcher.”
Triumph at 25 (81 BCE): He demanded—and received— a triumph for his African victory, unprecedented for someone so young and still below senatorial rank.
Campaigns of the 70s BCE:
Spain (76–71 BCE): Crushed the rebel Sertorius, extending his authority in the West.
Italy (71 BCE): Helped finish off the remnants of Spartacus’s slave revolt, claiming much of the credit.
Consulships
70 BCE (with Marcus Crassus)
Skipped the lower cursus honorum, using his army’s backing to win office.
Reversed many of Sulla’s strict measures, restoring the tribunes’ powers and re-balancing courts.
55 BCE (again with Crassus)
Part of the First Triumvirate with Julius Caesar.
Gained a five‑year proconsular command in Spain, which he held through legates while he remained in Rome.
52 BCE (sole consul)
Appointed in a crisis after street violence; effectively made Pompey guardian of public order.
Married Cornelia Metella, tightening his alliance with the conservative senatorial elite.
Military and Political Career
Pompey’s military reputation reached its height in the late 60s BCE, when Rome granted him extraordinary commands. In 67 BCE, faced with a crisis of Mediterranean piracy disrupting trade and Rome’s grain supply, the Senate (under pressure from the Tribune Gabinius) gave Pompey sweeping powers (via the Lex Gabinia) to clear the seas.
Instant credibility (67 BCE).When the Senate gave Pompey command against the Cilician pirates, grain prices fell that very day.
"...his name alone and the hopes which it inspired caused a sudden fall in the price of wheat, after a time of extreme dearth and scarcity in the corn supply, to as low a level as could possibly have been reached after a long period of peace and agricultural prosperity."
-Cicero, De Lege Manilia (de Imperio Cn. Pompei), 43Pirates crushed (67 BCE).Using an unprecedented fleet and subdividing the Mediterranean into patrol zones, Pompey eliminated the pirate threat in about three months.
Mithridatic War won (66‑64 BCE).The Lex Manilia handed Pompey Lucullus’ long war in the East. He drove Mithridates VI from Pontus, forced Armenia to terms, and pacified the region.
Eastern settlement (64‑62 BCE).Pompey annexed Syria, reorganised Asia Minor, installed client‑kings, and briefly occupied Judaea—greatly enlarging Rome’s empire.
Grand triumph (61 BCE).Back in Rome he celebrated his third—and spectacular—triumph for victories on three continents.
First Triumvirate (60‑59 BCE).Frustrated by a hostile Senate, Pompey joined Julius Caesar and Marcus Crassus in a private power‑bloc. He married Caesar’s daughter Julia to seal the pact and enhanced his popularity with public works such as the first permanent stone theatre in Rome.
Second consulship and Spanish command (55 BCE).Serving with Crassus, Pompey received pro‑consular authority over Spain but governed from Rome through legates.
Break with Caesar (54‑52 BCE).Julia’s death and Crassus’s fall at Carrhae dissolved the Triumvirate. Pompey drifted to the conservative Senate party and, amid street violence, was appointed sole consul in 52 BCE. He married Cornelia Metella, tying himself to the Metellan faction.
Civil War and defeat (49‑48 BCE).After Caesar crossed the Rubicon, Pompey evacuated Italy with most of the Senate, regrouped in Greece, but lost the decisive battle of Pharsalus. Forced to flee, he was murdered in Egypt the same year.
Death in Egypt (48 BCE) After Pharsalus, Pompey fled to Egypt seeking refuge and support from the Ptolemaic regime. In a tragic turn of events, the teenage Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII’s advisors betrayed Pompey. As Pompey disembarked in Egypt, he was assassinated on September 28, 48 BCE. His head was severed and presented to Caesar in a grisly attempt to curry favor. This did not have the impact on Caesar that Ptolemy hoped for.
"This was the end of Pompey. But not long afterwards Caesar came to Egypt, and found it filled with this great deed of abomination. From the man who brought him Pompey's head he turned away with loathing, as from an assassin; and on receiving Pompey's seal-ring, he burst into tears; the device was a lion holding a sword in his paws. But Achillas and Potheinus he put to death. The king himself, moreover, was defeated in battle along the river, and disappeared. 6 Theodotus the sophist, however, escaped the vengeance of Caesar; for he fled out of Egypt and wandered about in wretchedness and hated of all men. But Marcus Brutus, after he had slain Caesar and come into power, discovered him in Asia, and put him to death with every possible torture. The remains of Pompey were taken to Cornelia, who gave them burial at his Alban villa."
-Plutarch, Lives, Life of Pompey the Great, 80.5
Personal Life and Character
Pompey’s personal life was interwoven with his political fortunes. He married five times, using marriage as a tool to forge alliances.
Pompey won praise for his self‑discipline, superb organisation, and occasional clemency. After crushing the pirates in 67 BCE he spared most of them and resettled them as farmers—an uncommon mercy. His soldiers loved him for his courage in battle and his readiness to share the profits of victory.
Yet many contemporaries found him proud and hungry for glory. He could bully the Senate and insist on special honours, and even admirers such as Cicero wavered over his commitment to republican rules. Plutarch and Appian note that Pompey liked to pose as the model statesman but was often driven by rivalry and ambition.
Pompey’s two sons tried to keep his cause alive. Gnaeus and, later, Sextus Pompey fought on after their father’s death, styling themselves champions of the Republic. Gnaeus was executed in 45 BCE; Sextus held Sicily for a time but was killed by 35 BCE. Their failure ended the armed resistance, but the name Pompeius Magnus—and the memory of his achievements—remained powerful in Roman political legend.
Pompey and the Founding of America
Pompey’s legacy did not end with antiquity; through the centuries, his life became a touchstone for discussions about republicanism, leadership, and tyranny.
The narrative of Pompey’s career – especially his rivalry with Caesar and the end of the Roman Republic – offered the American revolutionaries and founders a dramatic template for understanding the threats to liberty. The founders often cast British tyranny in the role of Caesar and themselves as latter-day Romans resisting subjugation. Roman Republican heroes like Cato, Brutus, and Cicero were celebrated in the American imagination; in that pantheon, Pompey figured as the great general who (for a time) stood as champion of the Republic against Caesar’s ambition.
In the debates over the U.S. Constitution, references to Roman history – and Pompey by name – were used to argue contemporary points. In 1813, Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson that in every American state one could find rival factions equivalent to “a Cæsar and a Pompey”, destined to clash just as in ancient Rome (John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 15 November 1813). Adams warned that even the United States was not immune to the ambitions and conflicts that had undone the Roman Republic.
Pompey’s failure to prevent civil war and dictatorship provided a cautionary tale about disunity and the perils of excessive ambition or reluctance to compromise. The founders frequently discussed how the Roman Republic fell; they understood that if Americans succumbed to factionalism or allowed a single leader to accumulate too much power, their experiment could likewise collapse. Pompey’s era, with civil strife and the end of liberty under an empire, was a dire warning.
References:
Plutarch. The Life of Pompey. In Plutarch’s Lives, Vol. V of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1917.
Markowitz, Mike. “The Ancient Coins of Pompey the Great.” CoinWeek (Ancient Coin Series), July 13, 2023.
Greenhalgh, Peter A. L. Pompey, the Roman Alexander. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1981.
Adams, John. Letter to Benjamin Rush, 23 January 1807 (excerpt). Quoted in Digital History (Digital History). (Original in The Adams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.)
Adams, John. Letter to Thomas Jefferson, 15 November 1813. In Founders Online, National Archives
“Caesar” [pseudonym]. Letter I, New-York Packet, October 1787, reproduced in Teaching American History.
Markowitz, Mike. “The Ancient Coins of Pompey the Great.” CoinWeek (Ancient Coin Series), July 13, 2023.
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