Caesar.
Father of the Roman Empire, Destroyer of the Roman Republic, stabbed 23 times, the guy
other guys compare themselves to when they want to look tough, yeah okay we get it, he
did some stuff, but he was only one third of a triumvirate and you know who else was
doing stuff at the end of the Republic?
Pompey: Thrower of parties, marrier of daughters, General of everywhere Caesar wasn’t, and
overachiever extraordinaire.
Roll the intro!
[INTRO]
Sorry, Crassus, maybe another time.
Be seein’ ya, buddy.
Right.
Pompey…
I’m not 100% sure that isn’t a bust of Mel Brooks - Pompey isn’t exactly a rags-to-riches,
sweat-of-his-brow kind of guy, his father was a second-class citizen who served as a
consul with a reputation for greed and ruthlessness and double-crossing, a lot like Pompey, actually.
Yeah second class sounds modest until you realize Rome had quite a few classes and the
plebs took up a hefty majority.
At the end of the Republic, Rome was not lookin so hot.
Violence had become an essential element of politics decades before, Rome was fighting
war after war with Greece and Italy and itself, Marius and Sulla were doing the whole “two
great men duke it out” thing before it was cool, Pompeius Senior actually died in the
siege of Rome and Pompey got held accountable for his dad maybe stealing some public property,
standard politician stuff.
But darned if Pompey didn’t know how to make the best of a bad situation -- the judge
found him so charming that he didn’t just let him off the hook, he gave him his daughter.
Now this was all well and good for Pompey but then Marius and Sulla started another
civil war and Pompey took three legions and marched on Rome from the North while Sulla
came in from the South, and Sulla was so thrilled he gave him his step-daughter and the title
“Pompey the Great”.
To be fair though it’s a lot easier to be known as the great with a name like Pompey.
And it’s not too long before Pompey’s true colours begin to show.
While Sulla was basking in the glory of the dictatorship and setting dangerous precedents,
Pompey was sent to chase the last of the Marians to the ends of the Earth -- the ends of the
Roman Earth, at least, meaning he ran them out of Sicily and then squashed a rebellion
in Northern Africa.
But the turnaround time was pretty remarkable.
Pompey certainly thought so, so he went to ask Sulla:
“Hey can I throw a triumph?”
“You did good kid, but we only do that kind of thing for consuls and praetors -”
“Come on, I’m hot stuff, you’re old news, what are you gonna do, kill me?”
“Well no, but -” “All right, throwin’ a triumph!
Pompey!”
So Pompey rode into Rome on a chariot driven by elephants… that couldn’t fit through
the city gate so he had to awkwardly switch to horses, presumably while everybody watched.
He continued to push Sulla’s buttons until the day he died.
Needless to say Pompey was not included in the will.
The next eighteen years were more of the same.
Pompey fought a war in Spain, got another triumph, became consul at the age of 35 even
though he’d never held public office and was still illegally young, fought a war against
pirates, fought a war in the Black Sea, conquered Syria, turned Judea into a client kingdom
(which would never come back to bit the Romans), hell he liberated some city-states in Palestine
so hard that they restructured they calendars to start at 0 PE, Pompeian Era, and they kept
them that way for six or seven hundred years even though, y’know, Jesus was right next
door!
So basically I could make videos about Pompey for the rest of the year and we’d still
never get to the triumvirate but that’s the climax of the story so we’re just gonna
skip the first few acts.
So after Pompey returned to Rome and, wait for it, threw himself the biggest most elaborate
triumph Rome had ever seen to celebrate his 45th birthday, he and Caesar noticed something:
they were both powerful men who wanted to be more powerful men.
With Pompey’s popularity and Caesar’s cunning, there was nothing to stop them!
So they formed an alliance, and then Caesar added Crassus to the group because he was
more or less the richest man to have ever lived, absolute rulers aside.
Everything was great -- Caesar got a turn as consul, Pompey and Crassus got a turn as
consul, Pompey even got Caesar’s daughter Julia to be his next trophy wife.
but he started to notice something: Caesar was getting awfully popular after conquering
Gaul.
And he was definitely sporting a bigger army after Pompey lent him a legion or two.
And then Julia died, so Caesar wasn’t Pompey’s father-in-law anymore (don’t worry, he found
a new 20-year-old to marry).
Suddenly Caesar lost the election for consul to two of his arch-nemeses, people are trying
to disarm Pompey and Caesar, but you’ve got to get both of them to do it at the same
time or else the other one is going to take absolute power, but now they’re both armed
and Pompey’s army is right there in the city, and maybe Pompey should be the only
consul, and what do you mean Caesar’s already crossed the Rubicon?!
So here’s the deal.
Pompey gets out of there because things are going from zero to a hundred real fast.
He can’t go to Spain so he goes to Greece and takes the senate with him, because he’s
basically in charge of the whole East.
He gives Bibulus, former consul and governor of Syria, a fleet with which to guard the
Adriatic Sea while he gathers soldiers and taxes.
But Bibulus figures that it’s winter and nobody’s going to go sailing in winter,
especially not the Romans, their most brilliant naval strategy is just to ram the other guy’s
ship and fight like they’re on land, it’ll be fine.
So he docks his ships far away and Caesar gets half his ships across before Bibulus
has time to react and come on Bibulus you had one job!
Oh well.
At least this’ll be exciting to watch because the stage is set for the clash between the
two greatest generals of the age, like watching a couple of superheroes who used to be good
friends become driven to fight each other due - wait a minute, I’ve made that reference
before!
But Pompey’s got the numbers, he’s got supplies, he’s got the home field advantage,
and he’s got Caesar right where he wants him.
But Caesar’s got Caesar.
And then this happens.
[Fire, screaming, general clamor and other such battlefield noises]
Thus Pompey finds himself in the shoes of those last Marians all those years ago, being
chased to the ends of the Earth.
In this case meaning Egypt where he was betrayed and stabbed to death, like a certain other triumvir I know o.
Caesar showed up two days later and said “Jesus, dude, I wanted him to surrender, not kill
him!
What is wrong with you?!”
But he really hit it off with Cleopatra, so I guess all's well that ends well.