Lives by Plutarch - 15 - Pompey the Great
Pompey the Great
Quote
"Is there to be no end to my labours? It really is better to be born a nobody. Look at me: my military service will never stop, and I'll never shake off the envy that haunts me and live quietly in the country with my wife."
Notes
Pompey grows up during the civil war between Marius and Sulla. He joins Sulla's side and wins his favour. Sulla sees him almost as an equal even though he (Pompey) is still really young at this point.
When Sulla becomes dictator, he wants Pompey in his family, so he offers him his step-daughter, Aemilia, to marry. However, Aemilia is already married to someone else and she's pregnant to boot. Plus, Pompey's wife (he's already married, too) just lost her father, who was murdered, and her mother, who committed suicide, and this proposed marriage is adding humiliation on top of that. In the end, Aemilia dies giving birth, so that ends that.
Pompey continues as an army commander under Sulla. He's too good, though, and Sulla is nervous about Pompey overtaking him. He orders Pompey to return from his campaign in Africa, but he heaps praise on him and starts calling him Pompey the Great, maybe trying to disguise his paranoia. Pompey gets a triumph even though he's still really young.
Eventually Sulla dies and Pompey is the clear choice to succeed him. The Romans are afraid he'll become a dictator like Sulla, but he doesn't. Instead he restores the tribunate as a favour to the common people. He's also very careful at managing his public image in order to preserve his fame. Plutarch explains: "Life as a private citizen can indeed have a damaging effect on the reputations of people who have made a great name for themselves in war and are therefore at odds with everyday equality. They think they deserve the same prominence in the one domain that they had in the other."
Pirates start becoming a really big problem. They're kidnapping Romans and desecrating their temples, putting Rome's supremacy in disrepute. (The civil war created an opening for the pirates since Rome was too busy fighting itself.)
There is a proposal to give Pompey a ton of power and a large army to stop the pirates. Most senators are against it (Caesar supports it), but Pompey is so overwhelmingly popular there isn't anything they can do to stop it.
Pompey gets to work on the pirates and there's a noticeable change that happens really fast. Prices go back down and the markets are more secure. He even tries to civilize the pirates instead of killing them.
Once the pirates are dealt with, Rome gives Pompey command to take on other wars. He pretends to be upset (see quote at the top), but he really enjoys his power and fame. He goes on to have more huge successes, bring Rome lots of new territory and wealth. And he has more triumphs to celebrate. He actually has three of them: one for Africa, one for Europe, and another for Asia, "so that in a sense it seemed as though the whole world had been subdued by his three triumphs."
Plutarch remarks that it would have been lucky for him to have died about now, since things mostly go downhill from here. Caesar comes onto the scene, returning from his very successful military campaign, and enters the political arena. Pompey is actually married to Caesar's daughter, Julia, whom he truly loves, and which also creates a kind of pact between Caesar and Pompey who in reality are rivals. Still they are working together in a way for the time being.
But then Julia dies, and their pact starts to fall apart. Plutarch has some reflection on what's about to happen, and the insatiable appetite for power between Pompey and Caesar: "This shows how little power fortune has compared with human nature. How could fortune fulfill a person's desires, when all the wide open spaces of such a huge empire could not satisfy two men?"
Pompey allows lawlessness to break out in Rome so that people will demand he become dictator to bring back some order. The plan works. They reason that "either the anarchy will end, or we'll lose our freedom to the man who would make the best tyrant."
But his next move is to marry someone way younger than him, which upsets a lot of people. Why isn't he focussing on Rome's problems, since they just made him a dictator?
Caesar decides to cross the Rubicon and march towards Rome to attack. Rome is in a panic. People are fleeing and rumours are flying everywhere so that it's hard for Pompey to really get a grip on what's happening. He decides to take his army and get out of Rome, too. People question this decision. The city was a good place to mount a defense. Why give it up?
Pompey takes his army to his ships at sea. He thinks he can wait Caesar out and drain his supplies. Though lots of people are against his delays and want to go out and fight. Caesar does his best to try and draw them out. Pompey eventually (weakly, says Plutarch) gives in to their criticisms and they prepare for battle. Plutarch again remarks how wasteful this all is. If they hadn't been fighting amongst themselves, Rome could have vastly expanded its empire and its power and wealth, and "enjoy the fruits of its conquests."
Pompey is at the losing end of the battle so he runs away. Caesar's men take Pompey's camp. They're surprised to see the signs of how overconfident they were. They were enjoying lots of luxuries and drinking celebratory wine.
Meanwhile Pompey is on the run, reflecting on how quickly fortunes can change. He goes to get his wife, Cornelia, and they run away to Egypt. The leaders there don't know what to do with Pompey. They're afraid of getting involved in the civil war, incurring the anger of Caesar if they take Pompey in, or subjecting themselves to Pompey's anger if they turn him away. So they decide it's best to kill him, thinking maybe that'll get them on Caesar's good side. They bring Pompey's head to Caesar but he actually is not happy at all and has all Pompey's murderers killed. One of Pompey's friends manages to recover his headless body and gives him a proper burial.