Gnaus Pompey “Magnus”: Rome’s “first emperor”
From Sulla’s supporter to the darling of the Senate, the life of Gnaeus Pompey “Magnus” was nothing if not remarkable. As a young man, his military successes were many. Having cleared the Mediterranean of pirates, he then defeated the menacing King Mithridates in the East, making his former kingdom a Roman province, before going on to annex Armenia, Syria and Judaea. But with great responsibility came great power. And for Pompey could see his expansionist vision through, the Senate had to grant him powers in terms of duration and the number of soldiers under his command that surpassed even Marius.
Pompey was the first Roman to be treated like a god. In the East, cults spread up around him, including a group of pompeiastae (“Pompey-worshippers”) on the island of Delos. A number of cities were named in his honor, including Pompeiopolis and Magnopolis. In Rome, Pompey’s powers almost amounted to autocratic. He used the immense personal wealth he’d accrued on campaign to fund extensive building programmes, including the construction of Rome’s first permanent, stone theatre. The Senate even made him sole consul in 52 BC, the first time this had ever happened in the history of the Republic.
The problem Pompey had back in Rome was the same Sulla and Marius had had before him and Julius Caesar would have after him: the republican system had no way of recognizing (and rewarding) incredible individual achievement. A triumphant general, worshipped as a god abroad and responsible for expanding Rome’s Empire, was expected to settle back into the Senate when he returned as one amongst equals. Understandably this didn’t sit well with some of the Republic’s more egotistical figures. Traditionally, consuls were meant to renounce their power at the end of each year, ensuring nobody could build up a monopoly. But there were ways around it.
Short of following in Sulla’s footsteps and marching on Rome, one was to make sure that if you couldn’t keep hold of power yourself, you could at least skew things in your favor by getting ‘your man’ elected. This is precisely what Pompey did when he teamed up with two other aspiring politicians, Gaius Julius Caesar and the richest man in Rome Marcus Licinius Crassus, and formed the First Triumvirate.