that he should continue in possession of an army after his rival had ceased to have one, by obtaining a senatusconsultum, by which his government of the Spains was prolonged for another five years. And, in case Caesar should obtain the consulship, he caused a law to be enacted, in virtue of which no one should have a province till five years had elapsed from the time of his holding a public office. Such were the precautions adopted against his great rival, the uselessness of which time soon showed,

The history of the next four years (B. C. 51-48) is related at length in the life of CAESAR [Vol. I. pp. 549-552]; and it is, therefore, only necessary to give here a brief outline of the remaining events of Pompey's life. In B. c. 51 Pompey became reconciled to the aristocracy, and was now regarded as their acknowledged head, though it appears that he never obtained the full confidence of the party. In the following year (B. C. 50) the struggle between Caesar and the aristocracy came to a crisis. The latter demanded that Caesar should resign his province and come to Rome as a private man in order to sue for the consulship; but it would have been madness in Caesar to place himself in the power of his enemies, who had an army in the neighbourhood of the city under the command of Pompey. There was no doubt that he would immediately have been brought to trial, and his condemnation would have been certain, since Pompey would have overawed the judges by his soldiery as he had done at the trial of Milo. Caesar, however, agreed to resign his provinces, and disband his army, provided Pompey would do the same. This proposition, however, was rejected, and Caesar prepared for war. He had now completed the subjugation of Gaul, and could confidently rely on the fidelity of his veteran troops, whom he had so often led to victory and glory. At the same time he lost no opportunity of strengthening his interest at Rome; the immense wealth he had acquired by the conquest of Gaul was lavishly spent in gaining over many of the most influential men in the city; the services of the consul Aemilius Paulus and of the tribune Curio, who were reckoned devoted partizans of Pompey, were purchased by enormous bribes. Pompey, on the other hand, neglected to prepare for the coming contest; he was firmly convinced, as we have already remarked, that Caesar would never venture to march against the constituted authorities of the state; and if he were mad enough to draw the sword, Pompey believed that his troops would desert him in the desperate enterprize, while his own fame and the cause of the republic would attract to his standard a multitude of soldiers from all parts of Italy. So confident was he of success that he did not attempt to levy troops; and when some of his friends remonstrated with him, and pointed out the defenceless condition of their party, if Caesar advanced against the city, Pompey replied "that he had only to stamp with his foot in any part of Italy, and numbers of troops would immediately spring up." He was confirmed in the conviction of his own popularity by the interest expressed on his behalf during a dangerous illness by which he was attacked this year at Neapolis. Many cities offered sacrifices for his restoration to health; and on his recovery public rejoicings took place in numerous towns of Italy. But he was soon cruelly undeceived. At the beginning of B. c. 49 the

senate decreed that Caesar should disband his army by a certain day, or otherwise be regarded as an enemy of the state. Two of the tribunes put their veto upon the decree, but their opposition was set at nought, their lives were threatened, and they fled for refuge to Caesar's camp. Caesar hesitated no longer; he crossed the Rubicon, which separated his province from Italy, and at the head of a single legion marched upon Rome. He was received with enthusiasm by the Italian towns; his march was like a triumphal progress; city after city threw open their gates to him; the troops of the aristocracy went over to his side; and Pompey, after all his confident boasting, found himself unable to defend the capital. He fled, with all the leading senators, first to Capua, where he remained for a short time, and subsequently to Brundisium. Caesar, however, gave him no rest; by the 8th of March he was under the walls of Brundisium; and as Pompey despaired of holding out in that city, he embarked on the 15th of the month, and crossed over to Greece. As Caesar had no ships he could not follow him for the present, and therefore marched against Pompey's legates in Spain, whom he conquered in the course of the same year.

In the next year (B. C. 48) the war was decided. Early in January Caesar arrived in Greece, and forth with commenced active operations. Pompey meantime had collected a numerous army in Greece, Egypt, and the East, the scene of his former glories. But although his troops far outnumbered Caesar's, he well knew that they were no match for them in the field, and therefore prudently resolved to decline a battle. His superiority in cavalry enabled him to cut off Caesars's supplies, and gave him the complete command of all the provisions of the country. The utmost scarcity began to prevail in Caesar's camp; since not only could he obtain nothing from the country, but he was likewise unable to receive any supplies from Italy, in consequence of the fleet of Pompey, which had the entire command of the sea. But Pompey was prevented from carrying out the prudent plan which he had formed for conducting the campaign. His camp was filled with a multitude of Roman nobles, unacquainted with war, and anxious to return to their estates in Italy and to the luxuries of the capital. Their superior numbers made them sure of victory; and Pompey's success at Dyrrhacium, when he broke through Caesar's lines and compelled him to retire with considerable loss, rendered them still more confident of success. Pompey's unwillingness to fight, which only showed that he understood his profession far better than the vain and ignorant nobles who would school him, was set down to his love of power and his anxiety to keep the senate in subjection. Stung with the reproaches with which he was assailed, and likewise elated to some degree by his victory at Dyrrhacium, he resolved to bring the contest to an issue. Accordingly, he offered battle to Caesar in the plain of Pharsalia in Thessaly, on the 9th of August, and the result justified his previous fears. His numerous army was completely defeated by Caesar's veterans. This defeat by his great rival seems at once to have driven Pompey to despair. He made no attempt to rally his forces, though he might still have collected a considerable army; but regarding every thing as lost, he hurried to the sea

coast with a few friends, only anxious to escape from the country. He embarked on board a merchant ship at the mouth of the river Peneus, and first sailed to Lesbos, where he took up his wife Cornelia, who was staying in the island, and from thence made for the coast of Pamphylia, where he was joined by several vessels and many senators. His friends now advised him to seek refuge in Egypt, since he had been the means of restoring to his kingdom the father of the young Egyptian monarch, and might, therefore, reckon upon the gratitude of the court. He accordingly set sail for Egypt, with a considerable fleet and about 2000 soldiers, and upon his arrival off the coast sent to beg for the protection of the king. The latter was only thirteen years of age, and the government was in the hands of Pothinus, an eunuch, Theodotus of Chios, and Achillas. These three men, dreading Caesar's anger if they received Pompey, and likewise fearing the resentment of the latter if they forbade him to land, resolved to release themselves from their difficulties by putting him to death. They accordingly sent out a small boat, took Pompey on board with three or four attendants, and rowed for the shore. His wife and friends watched him from the ship, anxious to see in what manner he would be received by the king, who was standing on the edge of the sea with his troops; but just as the boat reached the shore, and Pompey was in the act of rising from his seat, in order to step on land, he was stabbed in the back by Septimius, who had formerly been one of his centurions, and was now in the service of the Egyptian monarch. Achillas and the rest then drew their swords; whereupon Pompey covered his face with his toga, without uttering a word, and calmly submitted to his fate. He was killed on the 29th of September, the day before his birth-day, B. C. 48, and had consequently just completed his 58th year. His head was cut off, and his body, which was thrown out naked on the shore, was buried by his freedman Philippus, who had accompanied him from the ship. The head was brought to Caesar when he arrived in Egypt soon afterwards, but he turned away from the sight, shed tears at the untimely end of his rival, and put his murderers to death.

The character of Pompey is not difficult to estimate. He was simply a soldier; his life from his seventeenth to his forty-second year was spent almost entirely in military service; and when he returned to Rome after the conquest of Mithridates, he did not possess any knowledge of civil affairs, and soon displayed his incompetency to take a leading part in the political commotions of the time. He had a high sense of his own importance, had been accustomed for years to the passive obedience which military discipline required, and expected to be treated at Rome with the same deference and respect which he had received in the camp. With an overweening sense of his own influence, he did not condescend to attach himself to any political party, and thus became an object of suspicion to both the aristocracy and the people. He soon found out, what Marius had discovered before him, that something more was required than military glory to retain the affections of the multitude; and he never learnt the way to win the hearts of men. He was of a cold and phlegmatic temperament, and seems to have possessed scarcely any personal friends among

the Roman nobles. He was both a proud and a vain man, faults which above all others make a man disliked by his associates and equals. At the same time his moral character was superior to that of the majority of his contemporaries; and he was free from most of the vices which pervaded all the higher ranks of society at the time. The ancient writers bear almost unanimous testimony to the purity of his marriage life, to his affection for his different wives, to the simplicity and frugality of his mode of life, and to the control which he possessed over his passions and appetites. In his government of the provinces he also exhibited a striking contrast to most of the Roman nobles; justice was not to be purchased from him, nor did he enrich himself, according to the ordinary fashion, by plundering the subjects of Rome. untimely death excites pity; but no one, who has well studied the state of parties at the downfal of the Roman commonwealth, can regret his fall. He had united himself to a party which was intent on its own aggrandizement and the ruin of its opponents; and there is abundant evidence to prove, that had that party gained the mastery, a proscription far more terrible than Sulla's would have taken place, the lives of every distinguished man on the other side would have been sacrificed, their property confiscated, and Italy and the provinces divided as booty among a few profligate and unprincipled nobles. From such horrors the victory of Caesar saved the Roman world.

His

His wives

Pompey was married several times. and children are mentioned in the Stemma in p. 475, and an account of his two surviving sons is given below. Pompey never had his own portrait struck upon his coins; but it appears on the coins of Pompeiopolis and on those of his sons Cneius and Sextus. [See below Nos. 24 and 25.]

(The principal ancient authorities for the life of Pompey are the biography of Plutarch, the histories of Dion Cassius, Appian, and Velleius Paterculus, the Civil War of Caesar, and the Letters and Orations of Cicero. His life is related at length by Drumann, Geschichte Roms, vol. iv.)

23. POMPEIA, sister of the triumvir. [POMPEIA, No. 3.]

24. CN. POMPEIUS MAGNUS, the eldest son of the triumvir [No. 22] by his third wife Mucia, was born between the years B. c. 80 and 75. He accompanied his father in the expedition against the pirates R. c. 67, but he must then have been too young to have taken any part in the war. On the breaking out of the civil war in B. c. 49, he was sent to Alexandria to obtain ships and troops for his father; and after procuring an Egyptian fleet of fifty ships he joined the squadron that was cruising in the Adriatic Sea in B. C. 48. Here he succeeded in taking several of Caesar's vessels off Oricum, and he made an unsuccessful attack upon the town of Lissus. After the defeat of his father at Pharsalia, he was deserted by the Egyptian fleet which he commanded, and he then repaired to the island of Corcyra, where many of the Roman nobles, who had survived the battle, had taken refuge. Here he maintained that, possessing as they did the command of the sea, they ought not to despair of success; and he was very nearly killing Cicero, when the latter recommended submission to the conqueror. On his way to Africa, which his party had resolved to make the scene of the war, he learnt from his brother Sextus the death of his

cluded among these murderers, although he had had no share in the deed, and on the establishment of the triumvirate in October was proscribed. His fleet secured him safety; but as the governors of Gaul and Spain had declared in favour of the triumvirs, he had no fixed station on the mainland. He therefore cruised about, plundering the coasts both for the sake of support and with the view of injuring the triumvirs. His numbers gradually increased; many of those who had been proscribed by the triumvirs, and multitudes of slaves, flocked to him; and he at length felt himself strong enough to take possession of Sicily, which he made his head quarters. The towns of Mylae, Tyndaris, Messana, and Syracuse fell into his power, and the whole island eventually acknowledged his sway. A. Pompeius Bithynicus, who was propraetor of Sicily, had at first repulsed Sextus in his attempts upon Messana, but had afterwards allowed him to obtain possession of the town on condition that they should rule together over Sicily; but this condition was never observed, and Sextus became the real master of the island. Sextus likewise received support from Q. Cornificius, the governor of Africa. Rome now began to suffer from want of its usual supplies, which were cut off by Sextus; and accordingly Octavian sent against him a fleet commanded by his legate Q. Salvidienus Rufus (B. c. 42). The latter succeeded in protecting the coasts of Italy from the ravages of Pompey's ships, but was defeated in the straits of Sicily when he ventured upon a naval engagement against the main body of Pompey's fleet. This battle was fought under the eyes of Octavian, who departed immediately afterwards for Greece, in order to prosecute the war against Brutus and Cassius. Pompey had now become stronger than ever. His naval superiority was incontestable; and in his arrogance he called himself the son of Neptune. About this time he put to death Pompeius Bithynicus under pretence of a conspiracy.

While the war was going on in Greece between the triumvirs and the republican party, Pompey remained inactive. This was a fatal mistake. He should either have attacked Italy and caused there a diversion in favour of Brutus and Cassius, or he should have supported the latter in Greece; for it was evident that if they fell, he must sooner or later fall likewise. But the fall of Pompey was delayed longer than might have been expected. Octavian on his return to Italy was engaged with the Perusinian war (B. c. 41), and Pompey was thus enabled to continue his ravages upon the coasts of Italy without resistance. The continued misunderstandings between Octavian and Antony, which now threatened an open war, were still more favourable for Pompey. In the beginning of B. c. 40 Antony requested the assistance of Pompey against Octavian. Pompey forth with sent troops into the south of Italy, but was obliged to withdraw them shortly afterwards, upon the reconciliation of the triumvirs at Brundisium. The triumvirs now resolved to make war upon Pompey; but as he was in possession of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, and his fleets plundered all the supplies of corn which came from Egypt and the eastern provinces, the utmost scarcity prevailed at Rome, and a famine seemed inevitable. The Roman populace were not content to wait for the conquest of Pompey; they rose in open insurrection and demanded of their new rulers a reconciliation with the

master of the sea. Octavian thought it more prudent to yield, and accordingly a peace was negotiated between the triumvirs and Pompey, through the mediation of Scribonius Libo, the father-in-law of the latter. By this peace, which was concluded at Misenum in B. c. 39, the triumvirs granted to Pompey the provinces of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and Achaia, and promised him the consulship, the augurate, and an indemnification of seventeen and a half millions of denarii for his private fortune: Pompey, on his part, promised to supply Italy with corn, to protect commerce in the Mediterranean, and to marry his daughter to M. Marcellus, the son of Octavia, the sister of the triumvir. But this peace was a mere farce. Antony refused to give up Achaia; and Pompey, therefore, recommenced his piratical excursions. A war was inevitable: the only thing that could save Pompey was a quarrel between Octavian and Antony. In B. c. 38 Pompey sustained a severe loss in the desertion of one of his principal legates, Menas or Menodorus, who surrendered to Octavian Sardinia and Corsica, together with a large naval and military force [MENAS]. This important accession determined Octavian to commence war immediately. He appointed C. Calvisius Sabinus to the command of his fleet, with Menas as his legate. This campaign was unfavourable to Octavian. His fleet was twice defeated by. Pompey's admirals, first off Cumae by Menecrates, who, however, perished in the battle, and next off Messana, where his fleet was likewise almost destroyed by a storm. Pompey, however, did not follow up his success; he remained inactive, and lost, as usual, the favourable moment for action. Octavian, on the contrary, made every effort to equip a new fleet. He saw that it was absolutely necessary for him to crush Pompey before he ventured to measure his strength against Antony and Lepidus. He accordingly spent the whole of next year (B. c. 37) in making preparations for the war, and obtained assistance from both his colleagues, Antony and Lepidus. He appointed M. Vipsanius Agrippa to the supreme command of the whole fleet. Just before the breaking out of hostilities, Menas again played the deserter and returned to his old master's service, dissatisfied at having merely a subordinate command assigned to him. By the summer of B. c. 36, all the preparatious of Octavian were completed, and the war commenced. He had three large fleets at his disposal; his own, stationed in the Julian harbour, which he had constructed near Baiae ; that of Antony, under the command of Statilins Taurus, in the harbour of Tarentum; and that of Lepidus, off the coast of Africa. His plan was for all three fleets to set sail on the same day, and make a descent upon three different parts of Sicily. But a fearful storm marred this project; Lepidus alone reached the coast of Sicily, and landed at Lily baeum; Statilius Taurus was able to put back to Tarentum; but Octavian, who was surprised by the storm off the Lucanian promontory of Palinurum, lost a great number of his ships, and was obliged to remain in Italy to repair his shattered fleet. This was a reprieve to Pompey, who offered sacrifices to Neptune for his timely assistance, but Menodorus, who had he still remained inactive. been already of considerable service to Pompey, again played the traitor and went over to Octavian. As soon as the fleet had been repaired, Octavian again set sail for Sicily. Agrippa defeated Pompey's