Pompey the Great

Pompey the Great was Rome's most successful general for two decades and lost everything to Julius Caesar in four years. Born in 106 BC to a wealthy and widely disliked commander, he raised three legions from his father's veterans at twenty-three and brought them to Sulla, who greeted him as imperator and let him celebrate a triumph while still a private citizen — unprecedented, and the pattern of his whole career. He was called the young butcher for his executions of Sulla's enemies in Sicily and Africa. He crushed the remnants of Spartacus' revolt in 71 BC and claimed credit that belonged to Crassus, and was elected consul in 70 BC at thirty-five, below the legal age and having held no prior magistracy. In 67 BC he was given extraordinary powers to clear the Mediterranean of pirates, and did it in about three months. He then took over the eastern command against Mithridates, annexed Syria, ended the Seleucid dynasty, captured Jerusalem in 63 BC, and reorganised the whole east — roughly doubling Rome's revenues. The Senate refused to ratify his settlements or grant land to his veterans, so in 60 BC he joined Caesar and Crassus in an informal alliance and married Caesar's daughter Julia, whom he genuinely loved. Her death in 54 BC and Crassus's at Carrhae in 53 BC ended it. He drifted to the optimates and became sole consul in 52 BC. When Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC he abandoned Italy, was defeated at Pharsalus in 48 BC, and fled to Egypt, where he was stabbed in a boat within sight of his wife.

• Lived: 106 BCE – 48 BCE
• Nationality: Italian
• Roles: military_leader, general, consul