Sextus Pompey | |
|---|---|
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| Personal details | |
| Born | c. 67 BC[1] |
| Died | 35 BC (aged around 32) |
| Nationality | Roman |
| Children | Pompeia |
| Relatives | Pompey (father) Mucia Tertia (mother) Gnaeus Pompeius (brother) Pompeia Magna (sister) |
| Military service | |
| Rank | Prefect of the fleet and the coast Governor ofSicily andSardinia |
| Battles/wars | Caesar's civil war Bellum Siculum |
Sextus Pompeius Magnus Pius (c. 67 – 35 BC), also known in English asSextus Pompey, was a Roman military leader who, throughout his life, upheld the cause of his father,Pompey the Great, againstJulius Caesar and his supporters during the last civil wars of theRoman Republic.
Sextus Pompey formed the last organized opposition to theSecond Triumvirate, in defiance of which he succeeded in establishing an independent state inSicily for several years.
Sextus Pompeius was the younger son ofGnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great)[2] by his third wife,Mucia Tertia. His sister wasPompeia and his elder brother wasGnaeus 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 whenJulius Caesar became a threat.
When Caesar crossed theRubicon 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 conservativesenators. Sextus stayed in Rome in the care of his stepmother,Cornelia Metella. Pompey's army lost theBattle of Pharsalus in 48 BC and Pompey himself had to run for his life. Cornelia and Sextus met him in the island ofLesbos and together they fled to Egypt.[3] Upon arrival, Sextus watched his father being killed by treachery on 29 September of the same year. After the murder, Cornelia returned to Rome; in the following years, Sextus joined the resistance against Caesar in the Africanprovinces.[4] Together withMetellus 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 atThapsus in 46 BC against Metellus Scipio and Cato, who committed suicide.[5] In 45 BC, Caesar managed to defeat the Pompeius brothers in theBattle of Munda, inHispania (theIberian Peninsula, comprising modernSpain andPortugal), after what he himself described as his hardest fought victory ever.[6] Gnaeus Pompeius would soon die in a last stand atLauro, but young Sextus escaped once more, this time toSicily, and thereafter raised another dissident army in Spain.[7]
Back in Rome, Julius Caesar was killed on theIdes of March (15 March) 44 BC by a group of senators led byCassius andBrutus. This incident did not lead to a return to normality, but provokedyet 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".[8] In the immediate aftermath of the assassination, Cassius and Brutus advised that Sextus be recalled to Rome.[9] After Caesar's funeral, Antony also moved that Sextus be recalled to Rome, as well as be paid 50 million Attic drachmas in return for his father's stolen property and be given command of the entire Roman navy, which Sextus accepted. However, Sextus only got as far asMassilia before he returned to Sicily.[10] Early in 43, the Senate commendedMarcus Aemelius Lepidus for forging an alliance with Sextus against the Caesarians;[11] but thereafter Lepidus joined theSecond Triumvirate formed byGaius Julius Caesar Octavianus andMarcus Antonius, with the intention of avenging Caesar and subduing all other parties. The Triumvirs immediately beganproscribing their enemies after they came to an agreement amongst themselves, and many of those who were proscribed fled to Sextus in Sicily.[12] While Octavian sent lieutenants to Sicily to try and subdue Sextus Pompeius (and he certainly remained a focus of opposition in the Western Mediterranean) 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.[13]
Brutus and Cassius lost the twin battles ofPhilippi and committed suicide in 42 BC. Many of the survivors fled to Sicily to join Sextus and continue the fight.[14] After this, the triumvirs turned their attentions to Sicily and Sextus.
However, Sextus was by now prepared for strong resistance. He went about establishing a blockade around Italy, preventing any food from reaching the peninsula.[15] At one point, Antony's mother,Julia, ended up in Sicily with Sextus. He sent her along to Antony in the East as a token of good faith, and the two agreed to help one another if war broke out between Antony and Octavian. In response, Octavian also took steps to try and secure Sextus' loyalty.[16] In the following years, military confrontations failed to return a conclusive victory for either side, although in 40 BC Sextus' admiral, thefreedmanMenas, seizedSardinia from Octavian's governorMarcus Lurius.[17] In 39 BC, Sextus and the triumvirs signed for peace in thePact of Misenum.[18] Pompey was given legitimate control over Sicily and Sardinia in exchange for keeping the grain supply to Rome open and keeping his pirates in check.[19] The reason for the peace treaty was to secure the West before the anticipated campaign against theParthian Empire:Tacitus reports the view that "he [Octavian] had cheated Sextus Pompeius by a spurious peace treaty".[20] Antony, the leader of Rome's eastern provinces, needed a large number oflegions for the coming campaign, which would take his army (ostensibly) throughMesopotamia,Armenia andParthia. 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.[21] Octavian was defeated in the naval battle ofMessina (37 BC), so he now turned to his friendsMarcus Vipsanius Agrippa andTitus 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.[22]
Agrippa spent the winter training a navy on land and building a fleet nearLake Avernus, from scratch.[23] Agrippa fought Sextus at Mylae in August 36 BC, and again a month later, while Lepidus and Statilius Taurus invaded Sicily.[24] In theBattle of Naulochus, Agrippa destroyed the remainder of Sextus' fleet.[25] Sextus escaped toAsia Minor and, by abandoning Sicily, lost his only base of support.[26]
Sextus Pompeius was finally captured in 35 BC, and executed without trial inMiletus byMarcus Titius, whom Sextus had once spared; either by his own initiative or possibly on the orders of Antony orPlancus.[27] 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.
Sextus had marriedScribonia, a distant relative. She was the daughter ofLucius Scribonius Libo, consul of 34 BC and the niece of anotherScribonia, the second wife of Octavian. Sextus and Scribonia had a daughter, their only child, calledPompeia Magna. As an affine to both Sextus and Octavian, Scribonius Libo had played a role in brokering peace between Sextus and the Triumviri.[16] He very reluctantly abandoned Sextus in 36/35, in return for which he had received the consulship.
WherePlutarch 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.[28]
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