Roman politician and general (c. 67?35 BC)
Sextus Pompeius Magnus Pius
(
c.
67 ? 35 BC), also known in English as
Sextus Pompey
, was a Roman military leader who, throughout his life, upheld the cause of his father,
Pompey the Great
, against
Julius Caesar
and his supporters during the last civil wars of the
Roman Republic
.
Sextus Pompey formed the last organized opposition to the
Second Triumvirate
, in defiance of which he succeeded in establishing an independent state in
Sicily
for several years.
Biography
[
edit
]
Sextus
Pompeius
was the younger son of
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus
(Pompey the Great)
[1]
by his third wife,
Mucia Tertia
. His sister was
Pompeia
and his elder brother was
Gnaeus Pompeius
. Both boys grew up in the shadow of their father, one of Rome's greatest generals and an originally non-conservative politician who drifted to the more traditional faction when
Julius Caesar
became a threat.
When Caesar crossed the
Rubicon
in 49 BC, thus starting a civil war, Sextus' older brother Gnaeus followed their father in his escape to the East, as did most of the conservative
senators
. Sextus stayed in Rome in the care of his stepmother,
Cornelia Metella
. Pompey's army lost the
Battle of Pharsalus
in 48 BC and Pompey himself had to run for his life. Cornelia and Sextus met him in the island of
Lesbos
and together they fled to Egypt.
[2]
Upon arrival, Sextus watched his father being killed by treachery on September 29 of the same year. After the murder, Cornelia returned to Rome; in the following years, Sextus joined the resistance against Caesar in the African
provinces
. Together with
Metellus Scipio
,
Cato the Younger
, his brother Gnaeus and other senators, they prepared to oppose Caesar and his army to the end.
Caesar won the first battle at
Thapsus
in 46 BC against Metellus Scipio and Cato, who committed suicide.
[2]
In 45 BC, Caesar managed to defeat the Pompeius brothers in the
Battle of Munda
, in
Hispania
(the
Iberian Peninsula
, comprising modern
Spain
and
Portugal
), after what he himself described as his hardest fought victory ever.
[3]
Gnaeus Pompeius would soon die in a last stand at
Lauro
, but young Sextus escaped once more, this time to
Sicily
, and thereafter raised another dissident army in Spain.
[2]
Back in Rome, Julius Caesar was killed on the
Ides of March
(March 15) 44 BC by a group of senators led by
Cassius
and
Brutus
. This incident did not lead to a return to normality, but provoked
yet another civil war
between Caesar's political heirs and his killers. One of the latter,
Decimus Brutus
, wrote to M. Brutus and to Cassius that March that "we have nowhere to base ourselves, except for Sex. Pompeius".
[4]
Early in 43, the Senate commended
Marcus Aemelius Lepidus
for forging an alliance with Sextus against the Caesarians;
[5]
but thereafter Lepidus joined the
Second Triumvirate
formed by
Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus
and
Marcus Antonius
, with the intention of avenging Caesar and subduing all other parties. Sextus Pompeius in the Western Mediterranean certainly remained a focus of opposition, but the faction of Cassius and Brutus was the second triumvirate's first priority. Thus Sextus had the time and resources to develop an army, with the whole island of Sicily as his base, and (even more importantly) to establish a strong navy operated by Sicilian marines.
Brutus and Cassius lost the twin battles of
Philippi
and committed suicide in 42 BC. After this, the triumvirs turned their attentions to Sicily and Sextus.
However, Sextus was by now prepared for strong resistance. In the following years, military confrontations failed to return a conclusive victory for either side, although in 40 BC Sextus' admiral, the
freedman
Menas
, seized
Sardinia
from Octavian's governor
Marcus Lurius
.
[1]
In 39 BC, Sextus and the triumvirs signed for peace in the
Pact of Misenum
.
[2]
The reason for the peace treaty was to secure the West before the anticipated campaign against the
Parthian Empire
:
Tacitus
reports the view that "he [Octavian] had cheated Sextus Pompeius by a spurious peace treaty".
[6]
Antony, the leader of Rome's eastern provinces, needed a large number of
legions
for the coming campaign, which would take his army (ostensibly) through
Mesopotamia
,
Armenia
and
Parthia
. Thus, an armistice with Sextus' large forces on Sicily proved useful.
The peace did not last for long. In Antony's absence, Octavian renewed the conflict against Sextus. Sextus and Octavian accused each other of violating the terms of the Pact of Misenum, but the final straw was the betrayal of Sardinia to Octavian by Menas. Octavian was defeated in the naval battle of
Messina
(37 BC), so he now turned to his friends
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa
and
Titus Statilius Taurus
, both very talented generals. In addition, the third triumvir,
Marcus Aemilius Lepidus
, raised 14 legions in his African provinces to help defeat Pompey.
Agrippa spent the winter training a navy on land and building a fleet near
Lake Avernus
, from scratch.
[7]
Agrippa fought Sextus at Mylae in August 36 BC, and again a month later, while Lepidus and Statilius Taurus invaded Sicily. In the
Battle of Naulochus
,
[1]
Agrippa destroyed the remainder of Sextus' fleet. Sextus escaped to
Asia Minor
[1]
and, by abandoning Sicily, lost his only base of support.
Sextus Pompeius was finally captured in 35 BC, and executed without trial in
Miletus
by
Marcus Titius
, whom Sextus had once spared; either by his own initiative or possibly on the orders of Antony or
Plancus
.
[8]
[9]
Although Octavian later pretended that the execution without a trial of Sextus was illegal because Sextus was a Roman citizen, Octavian himself had declared Sextus an outlaw without citizen rights.
Family connections
[
edit
]
Sextus had married
Scribonia
, a distant relative. She was the daughter of
Lucius Scribonius Libo, consul of 34 BC
and the niece of another
Scribonia
, the second wife of Octavian. Sextus and Scribonia had a daughter, their only child, called
Pompeia Magna
. As an affine to both Sextus and Octavian, Scribonius Libo had played a role in brokering peace between Sextus and the Triumviri, and had very reluctantly abandoned Sextus in 36/35, in return for which he had received the consulship.
Chronology
[
edit
]
- 48 BC ? in Egypt with his father, who is assassinated
- 47/45 BC – resistance in Africa
- 45 BC ? his brother, Gnaeus, is defeated at Munda, Sextus continues resistance
- 42 BC ? controls Sicily with a powerful navy
- 39 BC ? pact of Misenum with Octavianus and Antony
- 37 BC ? defeats Octavian off Messina
- 36 BC
- August, defeats Octavian
- September, defeated by Agrippa off
Naulochus
(Sicily)
- 35 BC ? captured and executed in Asia Minor (Miletus)
Historiographical readings
[
edit
]
Where
Plutarch
gives Sextus only a minor role in the confused events surrounding the fall of the Roman Republic,
Appian
sees him as a more central figure, who might even have emerged as the final victor, so as to establish a dynasty of Pompeys, not Caesars.
[10]
Dramatic representations
[
edit
]
- Shakespeare
had Sextus Pompey as a major character in his play
Antony and Cleopatra
(1606?07).
- Sesto (Italian for Sextus) appears as main character in 1682 opera titled
Il Pompeo
by Italian baroque composer Alessandro Scarlatti.
- Sextus ("Sesto" in Italian) appears in
George Frideric Handel
's 1724 opera
Giulio Cesare in Egitto
("Julius Caesar in Egypt"). The opera attributes to Sextus the killing of the Egyptian King
Ptolemy XIII
, who had killed his father Pompey. This is not historically attested.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Jones, Tom B (1976). "Pompeius Magnus, Sextus". In William D. Halsey (ed.).
Collier's Encyclopedia
. Vol. 19. Macmillan Educational Corporation. p. 234.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Sextus Pompeius
- ^
R Warner transl.,
Plutarch: Fall of the Roman Republic
(Penguin 1958) p. 263
- ^
D R Shakleton Bailey trans.,
Cicero's Letters to his Friends
(Atlanta 1988) p. 489
- ^
D R Shakleton Bailey trans.,
Cicero's Letters to his Friends
(Atlanta 1988) p. 550
- ^
Tacitus,
The Annals of Imperial Rome
(Penguin 1966) p. 36
- ^
J Griffin ed.,
The Oxford History of the Classical World
(Oxford 1986) p. 533
- ^
Appian,
Bellum Civile
, 5.14.144
- ^
Ronald Syme,
The Roman Revolution
, pg. 232. Oxford University Press, 2002 reprint
- ^
B Breed,
Citizens of Discord
(2010) p. 279-80
Further reading
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
Media related to
Sextus Pompeius
at Wikimedia Commons
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