Pompey Quotes

Pompey snapped, “Cease quoting laws to us that have swords.

I'll be supposed upon a book, his face is the worst thing about him.

Men like Caesar and Pompey--they're not heroes, Meto. They're monsters. They call their greed and ambition "honour," and to satisfy their so-called honour they'll tear the world apart. But who am I to judge them? Every man does what he must, to protect his share of the world. What's the difference between killing whole villages and armies, and killing a single man? Caesar's reasons and mine are different only in degree. The consequences and the suffering still spread to the innocent (Gordianus the Finder to his son Meto)

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things! O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, Knew you not Pompey?

Hippocrates cured many illnesses—and then fell ill and died. The Chaldaeans predicted the deaths of many others; in due course their own hour arrived. Alexander, Pompey, Caesar—who utterly destroyed so many cities, cut down so many thousand foot and horse in battle—they too departedthis life. Heraclitus often told us the world would end in fire. But it was moisture that carried him off; he died smeared with cowshit. Democritus was killed by ordinary vermin, Socrates by the human kind. And? You boarded, you set sail, you’ve made the passage. Time to disembark. If it’s for another life, well, there’s nowhere without gods on that side either. If to nothingness, then you no longer have to put up with pain and pleasure, or go on dancing attendance on this battered crate, your body—so much inferior to that which serves it. One is mind and spirit, the other earth and garbage.

Does it serve any useful purpose to know that Pompey was the first to exhibit the slaughter of eighteen elephants in the Circus, pitting criminals against them in a mimic battle?

When do you propose to land?’ ‘Not until after dinner. I am letting the canoes come alongside and gossip, so that Queen Puolani will know everything about us and what is afoot. She will not be caught unprepared – it is a dreadful thing to have a whole carriageful of people draw up at your door and leap out grinning, the house all ahoo, carpets taken up, a great washing going on, the children bawling, yourself confined to the head, having taken physic, and your wife gone to Pompey in hopes of a new cook.

What you want in warfare is room to maneuver. Tight corners spell death. Having enemies gives you options. You can play them off against each other, make one a friend as a way of attacking the other, on and on. Without enemies you will not know how or where to maneuver, and you will lose a sense of your limits, of how far you can go. Early on, Julius Caesar identified Pompey as his enemy. Measuring his actions and calculating carefully, he did only those things that left him in a solid position in relation to Pompey. When war finally broke out between the two men, Caesar was at his best. But once he defeated Pompey and had no more such rivals, he lost all sense of proportion—in fact, he fancied himself a god. His defeat of Pompey was his own undoing. Your enemies force on you a sense of realism and humility.

Oh, Charmian, Where think’st thou he is now? Stands he or sits he? Or does he walk? Or is he on his horse? O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony! Do bravely, horse, for wott’st thou whom thou mov’st? The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm And burgonet of men. He’s speaking now, Or murmuring “Where’s my serpent of old Nile?” For so he calls me. Now I feed myself With most delicious poison. Think on me, That am with Phoebus’ amorous pinches black And wrinkled deep in time. Broad-fronted Caesar, When thou wast here above the ground, I was A morsel for a monarch. And great Pompey Would stand and make his eyes grow in my brow. There would he anchor his aspect, and die With looking on his life.

... man by nature is not a wild or unsocial creature, neither was he born so, but makes himself what he naturally is not, by vicious habit; and that again on the other side, he is civilized and grows gentle by a change of place, occupation, and manner of life, as beasts themselves that are wild by nature, become tame and tractable by housing and gentler usage...

CLEOPATRA TO THE ASP The bright mirror I braved: the devil in it Loved me like my soul, my soul: Now that I seek myself in a serpent My smile is fatal. Nile moves in me; my thighs splay Into the squalled Mediterranean; My brain hides in that Abyssinia Lost armies foundered towards. Desert and river unwrinkle again. Seeming to bring them the waters that make drunk Caesar, Pompey, Antony I drank. Now let the snake reign. A half-deity out of Capricorn, This rigid Augustus mounts With his sword virginal indeed; and has shorn Summarily the moon-horned river From my bed. May the moon Ruin him with virginity! Drink me, now, whole With coiled Egypt's past; then from my delta Swim like a fish toward Rome.

Caesar is a different category of man altogether. Pompey merely wants to rule the world. Caesar longs to smash it to pieces and remake it in his own image.

hates Pompey and is determined to defeat Spartacus before Pompey can return with his legions from Spain to take

That which is chiefly the office of a general, to force the enemy into fighting when he finds himself the stronger, and to avoid being driven into it himself when he is the weaker...

3. Alexander and Caesar and Pompey. Compared with Diogenes, Heraclitus, Socrates? The philosophers knew the what, the why, the how. Their minds were their own. The others? Nothing but anxiety and enslavement.

If these wars between Caesar and Pompey are “worse than civil,” it is because they were fought between two men who had been bound by marriage pact; in that sense, they were familial wars (“kin facing kin”), not merely between citizens.

Pompey contented himself with repulsing the attack and made no attempt to assault Caesar's line. This was widely felt to have been a mistake... and Caesar declared that the enemy 'would have won today, if only they were commanded by a winner.

It is said of Pompey, that when he was to carry grain to Rome in time of dearth, he was in a great deal of danger by storms at sea, but, says he, ‘We must go on; it is necessary that Rome should be relieved, but it is not necessary that we should live.

the success (or failure) of armies serving overseas had direct consequences on the home front; the political ambitions of men like Pompey and Caesar lay behind some of the wars of conquest; there was never any clear divide between the military and political roles of the Roman elite.

The Uncle Tom, the grinning nigger, the house nigger who is to blame for her debased place in this world. Pompey gave them a blueprint for colored folk. How they acted. How they pleased white folks. How eager they would be for a piece of the dream that they would do anything for massa.

THERE IS ONE type of honey you should avoid at all costs. Mad honey comes from bees that forage on rhododendrons and mountain laurel, and it’s full of poisonous grayanotoxins. It causes dizziness, nausea and vomiting, convulsions, cardiac disorders, and more. Symptoms last for twenty-four hours, and although rarely, if left untreated, can be fatal. It has been used in biological warfare as far back as 399 b.c., to make Xenophon and the Greek army retreat from Persia. During the Third Mithridatic War in 65 b.c., citizens of Pontus placed mad honey on the route taken by Pompey’s soldiers, and when the enemy helped themselves to the treat, they were easily conquered. The secret weapon of mad honey, of course, is that you expect it to be sweet, not deadly. You’re deliberately attracted to it. By the time it messes with your head, with your heart, it’s too late.

The termination of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey forms a new epoch in the Roman History, at which a Republic, which had subsisted with unrivalled glory during a period of about four hundred and sixty years, relapsed into a state of despotism, whence it never more could emerge. So sudden a transition from prosperity to the ruin of public freedom, without the intervention of any foreign enemy, excites a reasonable conjecture, that the constitution in which it could take place, however vigorous in appearance, must have lost that soundness of political health which had enabled it to endure through so many ages.

What are the only weapons I possess, Tiro?" he asked me, and then he answered his own question. "These." he said, gesturing at his books. "Words. Caesar and Pompey have their soldiers, Crassus his wealth, Clodius his bullies on the street. My only legions are my words. By language I rose, and by language I shall survive.

I don’t know what came over me.” Charlie smiled. He drew her to him and kissed her. “Me,” he said.

It was then that he gained the nickname adulescentulus carnifex: 'kid butcher' rather than enfant terrible.

The wider the grant of Roman citizenship, the broader the scope of civil war. As Florus argues, “The rage of Caesar and Pompey, like a flood or a fire, overran the city, Italy, tribes, nations and finally the whole empire, so much so that it cannot rightly be called a civil war, nor even a social or an external war, but it was a war with something of all of these—and yet worse than war.

No more light answers. Let our officers Have note what we purpose. I shall break The cause of our expedience to the Queen And get her leave to part. For not alone The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches, Do strongly speak to us, but the letters too Of many our contriving friends in Rome Petition us at home. Sextus Pompeius Hath given the dare to Caesar and commands The empire of the sea. Our slippery people, Whose love is never linked to the deserver Till his deserts are past, begin to throw Pompey the Great and all his dignities Upon his son, who - high in name and power, Higher than both in blood and life - stands up For the main soldier; whose quality, going on, The sides o' th' world may danger. Much is breeding Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life And not a serpent's poison.

Instead of making any further attempt to press the siege, Caesar devoted his energies to the creation of an artificial ford which enabled him to command both banks of the river Sicoris, on which Ilerda stood. This threatened tightening of his grip on their sources of supply induced Pompey's lieutenants to retire, while there was time. Caesar allowed them to slip away unpressed, but sent his Gallic cavalry to get on their rear and delay their march..Then, rather than assault the bridge held by the enemy's rear-guard, he took the risk of leading his legions through the deep ford, which was regarded as only traversable by cavalry and, marching in a wide circuit during the night, placed himself across the enemy's line of retreat. Even then he did not attempt battle, but was content to head off each attempt of the enemy to take a fresh line of retreat-using his cavalry to harass and delay them while his legions marched wide. Firmly holding in check the eagerness of his own men for battle, he at the same time encouraged fraternization with the men of the other side, who were growing more and m ore weary, hungry and depressed. Finally, when he had shepherded them back in the direction Ilerda, and forced them to take up a position devoid of water, they capitulated.

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. You all do know this mantle: I remember The first time ever Caesar put it on; 'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent, That day he overcame the Nervii: Look, in this place ran Cassius' dagger through: See what a rent the envious Casca made: Through this well-beloved Brutus stabb'd; And as he pluck'd his cursed steel away, Mark how the blood of Caesar follow'd it, As rushing out of doors, to be resolved If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no; For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel: Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him! This was the most unkindest cut of all; For when the noble Caesar saw him stab, Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms, Quite vanquishi'd him: then burst his mighty heart; And, in his mantle muffling up his face, Even at the base of Pompey's statua, Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell.

For first, when Pompey made severe laws for punishing and laying great fines on those who had corrupted the people with gifts, Cato advised him to let alone what was already passed, and to provide for the future; for if he should look up past misdemeanors, it would be difficult to know where to stop; and if he would ordain new penalties, it would be unreasonable to punish men by a law, which at that time they had not the opportunity of breaking.

but does it serve any useful purpose to know that Pompey was the first to exhibit the slaughter of eighteen elephants in the Circus, pitting criminals against them in a mimic battle? He, a leader of the state and one who, according to report, was conspicuous among the leaders28 of old for the kindness of his heart, thought it a notable kind of spectacle to kill human beings after a new fashion. Do they fight to the death? That is not enough! Are they torn to pieces? That is not enough! Let them be crushed by animals of monstrous bulk! Better would it be that these things pass into oblivion lest hereafter some all-powerful man should learn them and be jealous of an act that was nowise human.29 O, what blindness does great prosperity cast upon our minds! When he was casting so many troops of wretched human beings to wild beasts born under a different sky, when he was proclaiming war between creatures so ill matched, when he was shedding so much blood before the eyes of the Roman people, who itself was soon to be forced to shed more. he then believed that he was beyond the power of Nature. But later this same man, betrayed by Alexandrine treachery, offered himself to the dagger of the vilest slave, and then at last discovered what an empty boast his surname30 was.

In making the case for this special command, Cicero pointed to Pompey’s lightning success the previous year in clearing the Mediterranean of pirates, also thanks to sweeping powers voted by a popular assembly. Pirates in the ancient world were both an endemic menace and a usefully unspecific figure of fear, not far different from the modern ‘terrorist’ – including anything from the navy of a rogue state to small-time human traffickers. Pompey got rid of them within three months (suggesting they may have been an easier target than they were painted) and followed up his success with a resettlement policy, unusually enlightened for either the ancient or the modern world.

Grandeur," said Pangloss, "is extremely dangerous according to the testimony of philosophers. For, in short, Eglon, King of Moab,[Pg 167] was assassinated by Ehud; Absalom was hung by his hair, and pierced with three darts; King Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, was killed by Baasa; King Ela by Zimri; Ahaziah by Jehu; Athaliah by Jehoiada; the Kings Jehoiakim, Jeconiah, and Zedekiah, were led into captivity. You know how perished Crœsus, Astyages, Darius, Dionysius of Syracuse, Pyrrhus, Perseus, Hannibal, Jugurtha, Ariovistus, Cæsar, Pompey, Nero, Otho, Vitellius, Domitian, Richard II. of England, Edward II., Henry VI., Richard III., Mary Stuart, Charles I., the three Henrys of France, the Emperor Henry IV.! You know——" "I know also," said Candide, "that we must cultivate our garden.

Live by old Ethicks and the classical Rules of Honesty. Put no new names or notions upon Authentick Virtues and Vices. Think not that Morality is Ambulatory; that Vices in one age are not Vices in another; or that Virtues, which are under the everlasting Seal of right Reason, may be Stamped by Opinion. And therefore though vicious times invert the opinion of things, and set up a new Ethicks against Virtue, yet hold thou unto old Morality; and rather than follow a multitude to do evil, stand like Pompey's pillar conspicuous by thyself, and single in Example of Virtue; since no Deluge of Vice is like to be so general but more than eight will escape; Eye well those Heroes who have held their Heads above Water, who have touched Pitch, and have not been defiled, and in the common Contagion have remained uncorrupted.

To celebrate his victories Pompey summoned a meeting of the Senate to vote his father-in-law a further twenty days of public supplication, whereupon a scene ensued that I have never forgotten. One after another the senators rose to praise Caesar, Cicero dutifully among them, until at last there was no one left for Pompey to call except Cato. “Gentlemen,” said Cato, “yet again you have all taken leave of your senses. By Caesar’s own account he has slaughtered four hundred thousand men, women and children—people with whom we had no quarrel, with whom we were not at war, in a campaign not authorised by a vote either of this Senate or of the Roman people. I wish to lay two counter-proposals for you to consider: first, that far from holding celebrations, we should sacrifice to the gods that they do not turn their wrath for Caesar’s folly and madness upon Rome and the army; and second, that Caesar, having shown himself a war criminal, should be handed over to the tribes of Germany for them to determine his fate.” The shouts of rage that greeted this speech were like howls of pain: “Traitor!” “Gaul-lover!” “German!” Several senators jumped up and started shoving Cato this way and that, causing him to stumble backwards. But he was a strong and wiry man. He regained his balance and stood his ground, glaring at them like an eagle. A motion was proposed that he be taken directly by the lictors to the Carcer and imprisoned until such time as he apologised. Pompey, however, was too shrewd to permit his martyrdom. “Cato by his words has done himself more harm than any punishment we can inflict,” he declared. “Let him go free. It does not matter. He will stand forever condemned in the eyes of the Roman people for such treacherous sentiments.” I too felt that Cato had done himself great damage

The daemons are ‘between’ us and the gods not only locally and materially but qualitatively as well. Like the impassible gods, they are immortal: like mortal men, they are passible (xiii). Some of them, before they became daemons, lived in terrestrial bodies; were in fact men. That is why Pompey saw semidei Manes, demigod-ghosts, in the airy region. But this is not true of all daemons. Some, such as Sleep and Love, were never human. From this class an individual daemon (or genius, the standard Latin translation of daemon) is allotted to each human being as his ‘witness and guardian’ through life (xvi). It would detain us too long here to trace the steps whereby a man’s genius, from being an invisible, personal, and external attendant, became his true self, and then his cast of mind, and finally (among the Romantics) his literary or artistic gifts. To understand this process fully would be to grasp that great movement of internalisation, and that consequent aggrandisement of man and desiccation of the outer universe, in which the psychological history of the West has so largely consisted.25

Fame is of that force, as there is scarcely any great action wherein it hath not a great part, especially in the war. Mucianus undid Vitellius by a fame that he scattered, that Vitellius had in purpose to remove the legions of Syria into Germany, and the legions of Germany into Syria; whereupon the legions of Syria were infinitely inflamed. Julius Cæsar took Pompey unprovided, and laid asleep his industry and preparations by a fame that he cunningly gave out, how Cæsar’s own soldiers loved him not; and being wearied with the wars, and laden with the spoils of Gaul, would forsake him as soon as he came into Italy. Livia settled all things for the succession of her son Tiberius, by continually giving out that her husband Augustus was upon recovery and amendment; and it is a usual thing with the bashaws to conceal the death of the Grand Turk from the janizaries and men of war, to save the sacking of Constantinople, and other towns, as their manner is. Themistocles made Xerxes, king of Persia, post apace out of Græcia, by giving out that the Grecians had a purpose to break his bridge of ships which he had made athwart Hellespont.

The old ingrained human passion for power matured and burst into prominence with the growth of the empire. With straiter resources equality was easily preserved. But when once we had brought the world to our feet and exterminated every rival state or king, we were left free to covet power without fear of interruption. It was then that strife first broke out between patricians and plebeians: at one time arose seditious tribunes,295 at another tyrannous consuls: 296 in the Forum at Rome were sown the first seeds of civil war. Before long, Marius, rising from the lowest ranks of the people, and Sulla, the most cruel of all the nobles, crushed our liberty by force of arms and substituted a despotism. Then came Pompey, whose aims, though less patent, were no better than theirs. From that time onwards the one end sought was supreme power in the state. Even at Pharsalia and Philippi the citizen armies did not lay down their arms. How then can we suppose that the troops of Otho and Vitellius would have willingly stopped the war? The same anger of heaven, the same human passions, the same criminal motives drove them into discord. True these wars were each settled by a single battle, but that was due to the generals' cowardice. However, my reflections on the ancient and the modern character have carried me too far: I must now resume the thread of our narrative.

See how cruel the whites look. Their lips are thin, their noses sharp, their faces furrowed and dis­torted by folds. Their eyes have a staring expression; they are always seeking something. What are they seeking? The whites always want something; they are always uneasy and restless. We do not know what they want. We do not understand them. We think that they are mad." I asked him why he thought the whites were all mad. "They say that they think with their heads," he replied. "Why of course. What do you think with?" I asked him in surprise. "We think here," he said, indicating his heart. I fell into a long meditation. For the first time in my life, so it seemed to me, someone had drawn for me a picture of the real white man. It was as though until now I had seen nothing but sentimental, prettified color prints. This Indian had struck our vulnerable spot, unveiled a truth to which we are blind. I felt rising within me like a shapeless mist something unknown and yet deeply familiar. And out of this mist, image upon image detached itself: first Roman legions smashing into the cities of Gaul, and the keenly incised features of Julius Caesar, Scipio Africanus, and Pompey. I saw the Roman eagle on the North Sea and on the banks of the White Nile. Then I saw St. Augus­tine transmitting the Christian creed to the Britons on the tips of Roman lances, and Charlemagne's most glorious forced con­versions of the heathen; then the pillaging and murdering bands of the Crusading armies. With a secret stab I realized the hol­lowness of that old romanticism about the Crusades. Then fol­lowed Columbus, Cortes, and the other conquistadors who with fire, sword, torture, and Christianity came down upon even these remote pueblos dreaming peacefully in the Sun, their Father. I saw, too, the peoples of the Pacific islands decimated by firewater, syphilis, and scarlet fever carried in the clothes the missionaries forced on them. It was enough. What we from our point of view call coloniza­tion, missions to the heathen, spread of civilization, etc., has another face - the face of a bird of prey seeking with cruel in­tentness for distant quarry - a face worthy of a race of pirates and highwaymen. All the eagles and other predatory creatures that adorn our coats of arms seem to me apt psychological representatives of our true nature.

The Roman Empire (63 BCE – 324 CE) Pompey, the Roman general, conquered Israel in 63 BC. Herod the Great was assigned to rule Israel. The rule of the Romans was seen as cruel and oppressive and the Jews revolted in 66 AD. The temple was destroyed

I believe fiction allows me to break free of my bonds, those so-called chains of Earth thought and create magic.

I believe writing fiction is the mystical experience that allows me to break free of my human bonds, those so-called chains of thought, and create magic.

As Rome was broadly tolerant of other religions, the token act of submission and recognition of Rome and the emperor was usually performed. This degree of pragmatism was inconceivable to Judea. They had one god and he was not a Roman emperor. Almost every aspect of Roman civic life was at war with Jewish beliefs. Jewish worship of a single god brought them into immediate conflict with the tolerant paganism of Greeks and Romans. Jews could not join the Roman army because they were unable to perform military duties on the Sabbath; Romans recalled with contempt the ease with which Pompey had originally taken Jerusalem, citing the Jews’ prioritising of religious observation over self-defence. The Romans were uneasy about Jewish circumcision, echoing the abhorrence of the practice felt by the Greeks, who disliked it largely on aesthetic grounds.

Sit here, deliberating in cold debates, If we should sacrifice our lives to honour, Or wear them out in servitude and chains. Rouse up, for shame! our brothers of Pharsalia Point at their wounds, and cry aloud—To battle! 40 Great Pompey’s shade2 complains that we are slow, And Scipio’s ghost walks unrevenged amongst us!

Unfortunately for Pompey, the Egyptians were more afraid of incurring Caesar’s wrath

Caesar finally raised enough troops to march on Pompey’s Greek stronghold in Pharsalus in August of 48 BCE.

After General Pompey fled to Greece, Caesar made the decision to put off any pursuit

Pompey’s army was decisively defeated,

When good men come to bad ends,” Seneca would write, “when Socrates is forced to die in prison, Rutilius to live in exile, Pompey and Cicero to offer their necks to their own clients, and great Cato, the living image of all the virtues, by falling upon his sword to show that the end had come for himself and for the state at the same time, one cannot help being grieved that Fortune pays her rewards so unjustly.

In 63 BCE, Pompey besieged the Temple in Jerusalem, eventually breaking in on the Day of Atonement. It is said that some 12,000 Jews fell at that time. Jerusalem and Judea came under the power of Rome and a number of free cities were established: Gadara, Hippos, Scythopolis, Gaza, Joppa, Dor, and Strato’s Tower. In

By the time of the Great Schism, Italy had descended back into gangster politics, as in the days of Caesar and Pompey.

An oft-repeated tale recounts that a Christian mob destroyed the Great Library of Alexandria in 391 and burnt its books in the street. According to some versions, the repository in question was the original library in the Brucheium, while others state that it was a ‘daughter’ library located in the Serapeum. This tale has entered so deeply into the popular imagination that it even sometimes appears in otherwise respectable books of history. It is, however, a myth, originated in the late 18th century, when the great historian Edward Gibbon read an unwarranted meaning into a single sentence from the Christian chronicler Paul Orosius (fl. 414–17). The subtext of the legend is that the Christians of the fourth century were intensely hostile to the science, literature, and scholarship of classical culture, and that such matters were the special preserve of the pagans of Alexandria. This too is an 18th-century myth. The city’s scholarly and scientific class comprised Christians as well as pagans, and Christian scholars, rhetoricians, philosophers and scientists were active in Alexandria right up until the city fell to Arab Muslim invaders in 642. Regarding the library in the Brucheium – whose size, again, is impossible to determine – many ancient historians believed that it (or a large part of its collection) had already gone up in flames following Julius Caesar’s assault on the city in 48 or 47 BC, during his wars with Pompey. Some historians now also claim that, if any part of the original library remained, it vanished in 272, during the emperor Aurelian’s campaigns to reunite the empire. Whether either story is true, the Great Library of the Ptolemies no longer existed by the late fourth century. As for the ‘daughter’ library, it may have been situated within the enclosure of the Serapeum; there were, at any rate, library stacks in the temple. However, the Pagan historian Ammianus Marcellinus (c.330–95) indicates that whatever library had once been there was long gone before the Serapeum’s demolition in 391. More importantly, none of the original accounts of the temple’s destruction mentions a library, not even the account written by the devout pagan Eunapius of Sardis (c.345–c.420), who despised Christians and who, as an erudite man, would have been enraged by the burning of precious texts. Later Medieval legend claimed that the actual final destruction of the ‘Library’ or libraries of Alexandria was the work of the Arab conquerors of the seventh century ad. Of this, however, no account exists that was written before the 12th century. Whatever the case, the scurrilous story of the Great Library’s destruction by Christians is untrue. It may tell us something about modern misconceptions regarding the past, but tells us nothing about Christian or pagan antiquity.

Sextus Pompey was in his late twenties and had never been enrolled in the Senate,

Octavian had beaten Sextus Pompey.

Pompey came to see the attacks on Gabinius as a challenge to his own status

Pompey did not visit Egypt, but Auletes took care to provide aid to his army,

Pompey – fully, Cnaeus Pompeius – was a maverick general

Pompey was young and fancied himself a new Alexander,

Pompey was elected consul for 70 BC, with Marcus Licinius Crassus as his colleague

it is a dreadful thing to have a whole carriageful of people draw up at your door and leap out grinning, the house all ahoo, carpets taken up, a great washing going on, the children bawling, yourself confined to the head, having taken physic, and your wife gone to Pompey in hopes of a new cook.

Meanwhile, back in Rome, the victory of Antony’s conqueror had been Apollo’s triumph as well. The patching-up of Jupiter’s ancient temple on the Capitol had been as nothing compared to the stupefying redevelopment of the hill on the facing side of the Forum. In 36 BC, shortly after the defeat of Sextus Pompey, lightning had struck the Palatine. A god had spoken – but which god? Augurers sponsored by Rome’s most eminent devotee of Apollo had dutifully served up the answer. For almost a decade, in obedience to their ruling, cranes and scaffolding had crowded the summit of the Palatine. Only by October 28 had the work finally been completed.

For the memory of Alexander’s greatness had always served the Romans as a reproach. Even worse, it provided an inspiration to their foes. In the east the model of kingship established by Alexander had never lost its allure. For more than a century it had been neutered and systematically humiliated by Rome, yet it remained the only credible system of government that could be opposed to the republicanism of the new world conquerors. Hence its appeal to monarchs, such as Mithridates, who were not even Greek, and hence, most startling of all, its appeal to bandits and rebellious slaves. When the pirates had called themselves kings and affected the gilded sails and purple awnings of monarchy, this had not been mere vanity, but a deliberate act of propaganda, as public a statement as they could make of their opposition to the Republic. They knew that the message would be read correctly, for invariably, whenever the order of things had threatened to crack during the previous decades, rebellion had been signaled by a slave with a crown. Spartacus’s communism had been all the more unusual in that the leaders of previous slave revolts, virtually without exception, had aimed to raise thrones upon the corpses of their masters. Most, like the pirates, had merely adopted the trappings of monarchy, but there were some who had brought the fantastical worlds of romances to life and claimed to be the long-lost sons of kings. This, in a world ruled by a republic, was what revolution had come to mean. The royal pretensions of slaves fed naturally into the swirling undercurrents of the troubled age, the prophecies, which Mithridates’ propaganda had exploited so brilliantly, of the coming of a universal king, of a new world monarchy, and the doom of Rome. So when Pompey presented himself as the new Alexander, he was appropriating a dream shared by potentate and slave alike. If any Roman was qualified to appreciate this, it was Pompey himself. The conqueror of the pirates and the patron of Posidonius, he would have been perfectly aware of the menacing links between kingship and revolution, between the uppitiness of Oriental princelings and the resentments of the dispossessed

This, of course, was back in the days when 'Caesar' wasn't a title – it was just a man's name, meaning, oddly enough, 'long-haired'. You know, like Barbarians. At all events, Burebista was sufficiently concerned about Caesar's ambitions to send a message to Caesar's arch-rival, Pompey, offering him military support in return

The Warden of Land and Sea", murmured Cicero, "I suppose we should be grateful he's left us the air

Pompey, Crassus and Gabinius were amongst the many he had cuckolded

Then Pompey the Great arrived in Egypt for the first time in his long career.

Pompey ought to have won the civil war, for he had far greater resources at his disposal

The leaders were permitted to go and duly returned to Pompey.

The legions in Spain had been the most experienced under Pompey’s command,

To Pompey the defeat was of only minor significance

Organisation had always been Pompey’s forte

Pompey did not need Caesar as much as he had done in 59 BC.

In 59 BC Pompey had married Caesar’s daughter Julia, his only legitimate child.

but instead Pompey had married into a well-established senatorial family,

With Crassus and Pompey now both dead, there was really no other Roman left with whom it was worth competing.

led with great success by Cnaeus Pompey himself,

Octavian had begun building up a force of warships to deal with Sextus Pompey

Pompey did not yet consider him to be his equal.

that year Pompey was made

the provinces gave Pompey control of an army and the immunity from prosecution

or indeed of charging Pompey with anything.

The Senate decreed that an embassy should be sent to Pompey and his allies

but only after Pompey and his forces had escaped.

He lacked the ships needed to follow Pompey,

Pompey had no desire to fight another war,

Pompey Crassus’seven legions were outmanoeuvred by the Parthian cavalry at Carrhae in 53 BC.

None wanted to see the Republic dominated by Pompey,

It may have been Julius Caesar who came up with the idea of bringing Pompey and Crassus together

While Mark Antony paraded as Dionysus, and Sextus Pompey claimed Neptune as his father, Octavian officially called himself Divi filius, at the same time invoking the patronage of Apollo.

Meanwhile, the son of Pompey the Great celebrated his great victory.

He met the commander’s son for the first time, young Cnaeus Pompeius (whom we know as Pompey).

Above all, it needed to conserve its forces for the day of Pompey’s return.

Lentulus devised a solution to the problem of the returning Pompey;

Julia Domna’s father, descended from kings appointed by Pompey, was high priest of the Arab sun deity Allah-Gabad – God of Mankind, Elagab in Latin – worshipped in the form of a black meteorite, probably just one of many across the Arab world. There was no evidence that Mecca existed at this point, but a similar black meteorite – the Kaaba – would be worshipped there. Julia’s name Domna – black in Arabic – referred to the divine stone of Emesa.

The oral (agraphous) traditions of the papists, for they speak diversely of them. Sometimes tradition is used by them for the 'act of tradition' by which the sacred books were preserved by the church in an uninterrupted series of time (also a perpetual succession) and delivered to posterity. This is formal tradition and in this sense Origen says 'they learned by tradition that the four gospels were unquestioned in the church universal.' Second, it is often taken for the written doctrine which, being at first oral, was afterward committed to writing. Thus Cyprian says, 'Sacred tradition will preserve whatever is taught in the gospels or is found in the epistles of the apostles or in the Acts' (Epistle 74 'To Pompey'). Third, it is taken for a doctrine which does not exist in the Scriptures in so many words, but may be deduced thence by just and necessary consequence; in opposition to those who bound themselves to the express word of the Scriptures and would not admit the word homoousion because it did not occur verbatim there. Thus Basil denies that the profession of faith which we make in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit can be found in the Scriptures meaning the Apostles’ Creed, whose articles nevertheless are contained in the Scriptures as to sense (On the Spirit 8:41, 43). Fourth, it is taken for the doctrine of rites and ceremonies called 'ritual tradition.' Fifth, it is taken for the harmony of the old teachers of the church in the exposition of any passage of Scripture which, received from their ancestors, they retained out of a modest regard for antiquity because it agreed with the Scriptures. This may be called 'tradition of sense' or exegetical tradition (of which Irenaeus speaks, Against Heresies 3.3, and Tertullian often as well, Prescription Against Heretics 3:243–65). Sixth, they used the word tradition ad hominem in disputing with heretics who appealed to them not because all they approved of could not be found equally as well in the Scriptures, but because the heretics with whom they disputed did not admit the Scriptures; as Irenaeus says, 'When they perceived that they were confused by the Scriptures, they turned around to accuse them' (Against Heresies, 3.2). They dispute therefore at an advantage from the consent of tradition with the Scriptures, just as we now do from the fathers against the papists, but not because they acknowledged any doctrinal tradition besides the Scriptures. As Jerome testifies, 'The sword of God smites whatever they draw and forges from a pretended apostolic tradition, without the authority and testimony of the Scriptures' (Commentarii in prophetas: Aggaeum 1:11).

By chasing the wrong kind of “best”—fame, fortune, power, winning—Pompey had chained himself to the “worst.” It cost him everything. As it does for all of us, when we compromise, when we relax our discipline, when we make “exceptions” and do what is expedient instead of what we know is right.

But if they divide, each party will, in a course of time, have the whole house, and consequently the whole state, divided into two factions, which will struggle in words, in writing, and at last in arms, until Cesar or Pompey must be emperor, and entail an endless line of tyrants on the nation. But long before this catastrophe, and indeed through every scene of the drama, the laws, instead of being permanent, and affording constant protection to the lives, liberties, and properties of the citizens, will be alternately the sport of contending factions, and the mere vibrations of a pendulum. From the beginning to the end it will be a government of men, now of one set, and then of another; but never a government of laws.

Arriving home in Rome, flaunting Alexander the Great’s cloak (captured from Mithradates), Pompey, richer and more powerful than any Roman had ever been, was awarded an unprecedented third triumph for victories on a third continent and granted the agnomen Magnus – Great. The tri-triumphator launched a spectacular building programme. There was something of the modern politician about this man, described as ‘honest of face, shameless of heart’, but even self-righteous Cicero was dazzled by his ‘incredible godlike virtus’.

When Ovid strolled up to Apollo’s temple on the Palatine, or haunted the shady colonnades raised on the site of Vedius’s palace, or visited the arches of Pompey’s theatre, it was not to admire the architecture. He was scoping out girls.

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (the Great), better known in English as Pompey,