PREVIEW： Epochs #173 ｜ Pompey & Caesar： Part I
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
175.34825
Summary
In this episode of Epochs, I continue my narrative of the decline and fall of the Roman Republic with a look at one of the most important men in Roman history, Pompey the consul, and the man who brought him to power: Julius Caesar.
Transcript
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Hello, and welcome to this episode of Epochs, where I shall be continuing, after one episode hiatus, my story, my narrative of the decline and fall of the Roman Republic.
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Now, I've talked to you already all about Crassus and Cato, and the generation before us of Marius and Sulla, and various tribunes.
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Now, we're going to get to the meat of it, we're going to talk all about Pompey and Caesar.
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And I mentioned before, where their careers sort of overlap so heavily, the next few episodes of Epochs, I'm going to do narratives of both Pompey and Caesar, sort of cutting away and cutting between them, where they overlap so heavily.
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Because if I did just all Pompey and then all Caesar, we'd be covering a lot of the same thing twice.
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We'd be covering some of the same topics already, more than once.
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And I don't know how many episodes all this will be, probably quite a few, I like to do it in a fair amount of depth.
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But to begin with, having said all of that, to begin with, this first episode at least, I'm going to concentrate almost exclusively, if not completely exclusively, on Pompey, just for the first episode.
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Because Pompey is a little bit older than Caesar, not much, about five, six years older than Caesar.
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So in terms of him being involved in the events of history, the politics of Rome, he actually has got a head start on Caesar by ten years or more.
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Caesar doesn't start particularly late, but he certainly doesn't start early.
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Pompey's involved in stuff when he's like 21, 22 years old.
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He's actually involved in things way too early.
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He holds offices and holds commands, which technically, he's got no right to hold.
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In the Roman system, at least in the late Republic, there was property and age qualifications for most things.
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You simply weren't allowed to be a consul or a creator or hold imperium until you were in your thirties, usually.
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But because we were in a period of upheaval, i.e. the civil wars between Marius and Sulla, and then Sulla's dictatorship,
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the normal rules of politics were largely suspended.
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And so Pompey was able to have a meteoric rise very, very young.
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So all that said, he gets a good ten-year start on Caesar.
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Okay, so before I dive right in, just a few general words about Pompey.
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And one other thing to say, I've only covered two topics twice on epochs.
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I really, really don't want to cover the same topic more than once unless I can help it,
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The whole of human history seems a bit of a waste to talk about the same thing once.
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The only things I've done is Wellington, talked about the Peninsular War twice.
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Once from Napoleon's point of view, and once from Wellington's point of view.
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I have actually talked about Pompey once before, with Karl.
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But that episode, we actually were meant to do something else.
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And it was a last-minute change of plan, literally like one day before, to talk about Pompey.
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So that's just really sort of a general overview of Pompey.
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And this, obviously, these next few episodes of epochs will be much more in-depth.
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So if I repeat myself at all from that episode, you'll have to forgive me.
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And I think I did read this quote by Rex Warner.
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I'm going to read it again, because it gives just an excellent insight and overview of Pompey.
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The great translator and classicist Rex Warner wrote this about Pompey, or Plutarch's life of Pompey.
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The opening remarks of Pompey's character are surprising, to say the least.
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The Pompey who emerges from the pages of Cicero is hardly tactful, easy of manner, and free from conceit.
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Yet Plutarch later makes several more pertinent observations.
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He recognises Pompey's tendency to throw his weight around, as evidenced by his treatment of Lucullus and Metellus Cretius,
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and is aware of his extreme sensitivity to criticism and his constant yearning for popular approval.
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He also fully appreciates certain aspects of Pompey's career, the extraordinary nature of Pompey's rise,
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and skill with which he developed his clientele in Sicily, Africa and the East,
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and his brilliant capacity for organising large-scale campaigns, as against the pirates, are all given due notice.
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But as always, Plutarch is deterred by the complexities of internal politics.
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He remarks on Pompey's lack of political success on his return from the Mithridatic War,
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but the account of the decade before the Civil War leaves much to be desired.
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Plutarch obviously did not understand Pompey's attitude to Cicero's exile and recall,
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and he pays no attention at all to relations between Pompey and the Senate, either before or after Lucca,
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or to Pompey's infinitely devious efforts to play off Caesar against the Senate in the late 50s.
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On the credit side, he gives proper weight to the deaths of first Julia and then Crassus,
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and is excellent on Pompey's exploitation of growing anarchy,
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and on the factors that secured him his third consulship.
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The narrative of the Civil War is lacking in any discussion of Pompey's controversial strategy,
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but by way of compensation it contains one of the biographer's rare political insights,
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for Plutarch is conscious that the Senate were using Pompey,
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and that if Pompey once got rid of Caesar for them,
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he would find himself put on the shelf, if not liquidated.
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I may have read very heavily in my last episodes from Plutarch,
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because for the early life, particularly for the early life of Pompey,
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they only really pick up much later in Pompey's life.
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So it's got to be Plutarch, really, for the early part of Pompey's life.
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From the very beginning, the Roman people seem to have felt for Pompey
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the same feelings as those expressed by the Prometheus of Aeschylus for Hercules,
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when, after Hercules had delivered him, he says,
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I hate the father, but I dearly love this son of his.
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For the Romans never hated any of their generals so much and so bitterly
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While he was alive, they stood in awe of his military power,
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and he was certainly a most formidable soldier.
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Pompey's dad was struck by a thunderbolt and killed,
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they insulted his dead body and dragged it from the beer
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On the other hand, no Roman was ever held in such affection by the people as Pompey was,
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and no Roman enjoyed an affection which started so early in his career,
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and which remained so constant in his time of adversity.
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There was no one reason, and one only, for the hatred felt against Strabo Pompey,
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namely that insatiable love of money, but there were many reasons for loving Pompey.
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His modest way of life, his record as a soldier, his eloquence,
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his trustworthy character, and the easy, tactful way he had of dealing with people.
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No one ever asked favours with less offence or granted them with more grace,
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for among his many charms, he possessed the ability to give without arrogance
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and to receive without loss of dignity, end quote.
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So that's one thing to mention, Pompey's sort of personability.
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When you see his statues, he does seem to have sort of quite a kindly face.
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Well, that's funny, because at certain points in his life,
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particularly sometimes in the earlier part of his life,
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putting people to death, having lots and lots of people executed,
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But usually, if you were his friend or a political ally or something,
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he certainly wouldn't be unnecessarily cruel or mean or anything.
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And I think you can sort of see it in his face,
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Sulla's statues look fierce and kind of almost scary.
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at least in the last part of his career and life.
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Whereas Pompey is probably reasonably nice as a person.
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Anyone who knows anything about Pompey would already know this.
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He seemed to have had a fairly insatiable need to be loved, though.
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Doing anything so that everyone would love him.
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And people end up not liking you exactly for that.
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he had an appearance which seemed to plead for him
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And at the height and flower of his youthful beauty,
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And the configuration of his face round the eyes
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even if it's ever so slightly in a mocking way,