Caesar, in the course of the civil war, had beaten armies under Roman generals, but he had been careful not to celebrate such victories in specific triumphs. He had brought as prisoners only foreigners who had fought against him, even when these (the Numidians, for instance) had been fighting as allies of Roman factions and even though the Roman soldiers who opposed him bore the brunt of the defeat.
In his last battle in Spam, however, there were no foreign enemies. He had fought only Romans and if he had a triumph it could be only over Romans. He did not bring home a true "conquest," no true "tributaries," and why, therefore, a triumph?
The tribunes can be even more specific. Marullus says:
—Act I, scene i, lines 40-45
Gnaeus Pompeius (usually known as Pompey to English-speaking people) was born in 106 b.c. and made a great name for himself as a general at quite an early age, largely because of his talent for being on the right side in the right place at the right time. He won important victories in Spain, for instance, in 77 b.c. against a rebellious Roman general, largely because that general happened to be assassinated at the crucial moment.
He was given the right to append "Magnus" ("the Great") to his name as a result of early victories, which accounts for the tribune's reference to "great Pompey."
In 67 b.c. he accomplished something really surprising. Pirates had been infesting the Mediterranean Sea for a long time. They had evaded all Roman force and had all but made trade impossible, when Pompey was called to the task of suppressing them. He was put in charge of the entire Mediterranean coast to a distance of fifty miles inland for three years and was told to use that time for destroying the pirates. He managed to clear them all out in three months!
He was then put in charge of the Roman armies in Asia Minor. Again, this was a tremendous piece of luck for him. An earlier Roman general, competent but unpopular, had almost completed the job when his troops rebelled. Pompey took over, cleared up the last remaining forces of the enemy, and got all the credit.
In 61 b.c. he returned to Rome and at the age of forty-five received the most magnificent triumph Rome had seen up to that time. It is presumably partly with reference to this triumph that the tribunes spoke of the people waiting to see the great Pompey.
Pompey was not of a great aristocratic family himself and would have been proud to be accepted by the senators as one of their own. The senators, however, had learned from experience that successful generals of the non-aristocratic classes could be dangerous, and they watched Pompey carefully.
Yet Pompey had done his best to earn senatorial approval. On returning to Italy in 61 b.c. after his victories, he had disbanded his army and had taken his place in Rome as a private citizen. This had merely gained him a total loss of influence. He could not even persuade the Senate to approve the award of bonuses to his faithful soldiers.
Pompey was forced to turn elsewhere. He formed an alliance with Marcus Licinius Crassus, the richest man in Rome, and with a skillful and charming orator and politician, Julius Caesar. Caesar was then an impoverished aristocrat (who nevertheless opposed the Senators) in the employ of Crassus.
The three together, in 60 b.c., formed the First Triumvirate (triumvir means "three men") and ruled Rome.
The three took advantage of their power to parcel out provinces for themselves. Caesar, born in 100 b.c., and by far the most capable of the three, obtained for himself the governorship of that portion of Gaul ruled by Rome (a portion that included what is now northern Italy and southern France). He used that as a base from which to conquer the rest of Gaul. Fighting his first battles at the age of forty-four, he surprised everyone by showing himself to be a military genius of the first rank.
Pompey, who was assigned the governorship of Spain, but who let deputies run it while he himself remained in Rome, was not entirely pleased by Caesar's sudden development of a military reputation. As for Crassus, he was jealous enough to take an army to the east to fight the Parthians, who ruled over what had once been the eastern part of the Persian Empire. In 53 b.c. he lost a catastrophic battle to them at Carrhae, and lost his life as well.
Pompey and Caesar now shared the power, with no third party to serve as intermediary.
By now the senatorial conservatives, frightened by Caesar's success and recognizing Pompey as far the less dangerous of the two, had lined up solidly behind the latter.
Pompey, flattered by aristocratic attentions, let himself be wooed into open opposition to his erstwhile ally. When Caesar's term as governor of Gaul came to an end, the Senate, buoyed up by Pompey's support, arrogantly ordered Caesar to return to Rome at once without his army. This was technically in order since it was treason for any Roman general to bring a provincial army into Italy.
Caesar, however, knew that if he arrived in Rome without his army, he would be arrested at once on some charge or other, and might well be executed.
So after hesitating at the Rubicon River (the little Italian creek which was the boundary of Italy proper, in the Roman view) he made his decision. On January 10, 49 b.c., he crossed the Rubicon with a legion of troops and a civil war began.
Pompey found, much to his own surprise, that Caesar was far more popular than he, and that soldiers flocked to Caesar and not to himself. He was forced to flee to Greece and the senatorial party fled with him. Caesar followed and at a battle in Pharsalia, Greece, on June 29, 48 b.c., Caesar's army smashed that of Pompey.
Pompey had to flee again, almost alone, to Egypt, which was then still independent of Rome. The Egyptian government, however, was afraid to do anything that might displease Caesar, who was clearly the coming man. They therefore assassinated Pompey the instant he landed on Egyptian soil.
Caesar followed, and remained in Egypt for a while. There he met Cleopatra, its fascinating young queen.
Caesar next traveled to Asia Minor, and then to Africa, to defeat die-hard armies allied to those who shared the views of the dead Pompey and the senatorial party. Only then did he return to Rome for his quadruple triumph.
In no part of that quadruple triumph did Caesar commemorate his victory over Pompey himself. In fact, as a deliberate stroke of policy, Caesar forgave such of the Pompeian partisans as he could and did his best to erase hard feelings. His mission, as far as possible, was to unite Rome and put an end to the civil broils through conciliation.
And yet the Roman tribunes in their harangue to the populace bring up Pompey, reproachfully, in connection with this last triumph of Caesar, and Marullus says to the gathered people:
—Act I, scene i, lines 51-54
By "Pompey's blood" is not meant Pompey's death in defeat, as might seem, but Pompey's kinsmen.
Pompey had two sons, the elder of whom shared his father's name and was Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus also. We can call him Gnaeus Pompeius to differentiate him from his father, whom we can still call simply Pompey.
Gnaeus Pompeius remained with the senatorial party after his father's death. He had a fleet in his charge and he brought it to Africa (where the modern nation of Tunis exists), putting it at the service of the largest remaining senatorial army. When Caesar defeated it in April 47 b.c., Gnaeus Pompeius escaped to Spain.