Pompey the Great
(born Sept. 29, 106
BCE, Rome — died Sept. 28, 48
BCE, Pelusium, Egypt) Statesman and general of the
Roman Republic. His early military career was illustrious. He fought effectively for
Sulla against
Marius in the
Social War, reconquered Spain (76 – 71), utterly destroyed the army of
Spartacus (71), destroyed the pirates of the eastern Mediterranean (from 67), defeated
Mithradates (63), and consolidated and extended the eastern provinces and frontier kingdoms. In 61 he formed the First
Triumvirate with Julius
Caesar and
Marcus Licinius Crassus. After Crassus's death in 53, Pompey and Caesar fell out. By 52, with Rome in a state of anarchy, Pompey was named sole consul. In 49 Caesar defied the Senate and provoked civil war by crossing the
Rubicon in pursuit of Pompey, who fled east with his navy. After being defeated at the Battle of
Pharsalus (48), Pompey fled with his fleet to Egypt, not realizing that the Egyptians would take Caesar's side, and was killed as he prepared to step on land from the boat they had sent to bring him ashore.
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