Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus

Reading notes

• Ad Atticum 1.16 §11 this Magnus of ours

  "Magnus" (the Great) was Pompey's cognomen. Cicero plays on it, half-mockingly noting the cooling between them even as the urban plebs supposed him Pompey's intimate.

• Ad Atticum 1.18 §6 that little painted toga of his

  The toga picta, the gold-embroidered purple robe of a triumphing general, which Pompey had worn at his great triumph of 61 BC. Cicero's diminutive 'togula' mocks Pompey for hiding behind his past glory instead of acting.

• Ad Atticum 1.20 §5 the black eye

  "Magnus" (the Great) is Pompey's cognomen; Cicero puns that Afranius's incompetent consulship, secured by Pompey's bribery, is a disfiguring bruise on Pompey himself.

• Ad Atticum 2.6 §2 the Pompeian cistophorus

  The cistophorus was the standard silver coin of the province of Asia, worth less than its face in Roman denarii. Atticus's money from Pompey's Eastern settlement stood in this depreciated coinage; Cicero fears his brother's funds will be "left lying" in it rather than paid out in good denarii.

• Ad Atticum 2.9 §1 this our Hierosolymarius transferer-to-the-plebs

  A double sneer at Pompey. "Hierosolymarius" ("man of Jerusalem") mocks his capture of Jerusalem in 63 BC as a hollow Eastern triumph; "transferer-to-the-plebs" charges him with engineering Clodius's adoption into a plebeian family so Clodius could become tribune.

• Ad Atticum 2.12 §1 our Gnaeus, the colleague of Balbus

  A debated phrase; "Gnaeus" is taken as Pompey (Cn. Pompeius), here mockingly styled the "colleague of Balbus" (Caesar's agent L. Cornelius Balbus). Cicero offers to swear that Pompey himself admitted at Antium to having taken the auspice at Clodius's adoption. (Flagged.)

• Ad Atticum 2.12 §2 of the letters sent to Gnaeus

  "Gnaeus" is Pompey (Cn. Pompeius), to whom letters in the affair were addressed; the casual praenomen is Cicero's familiar shorthand for him in the correspondence with Atticus.

• Ad Atticum 2.14 §1 this our Sampsiceramus

  Cicero's recurring sneer for Pompey: Sampsiceramus was a petty Arab dynast of Emesa whom Pompey had subdued in the East. The name casts the great general as a tinpot oriental potentate, ridiculous in his new political pretensions.

• Ad Atticum 2.16 §2 now, Sampsiceramus

  Cicero turns to address Pompey directly under the mocking name Sampsiceramus, an Arab princeling of Emesa whom Pompey had subjugated in the East. The jibe reduces the conqueror to an oriental despot levying tribute on Syrian mountains.

• Ad Atticum 2.17 §1 Sampsiceramus

  Cicero's mocking nickname for Pompey, after Sampsiceramus, the petty Arab dynast of Emesa whom Pompey had dealt with on his Eastern campaign. The name brands Pompey as an Oriental despot fitting up a tyranny.

• Ad Atticum 2.17 §3 the Arabarch

  Another sneering byname for Pompey (the title of the Egyptian customs-official who taxed Arab trade), again casting him as an Eastern potentate grown rich on conquest.

• Ad Atticum 2.21 §3 that friend of ours

  Pompey, here named only obliquely. Cicero describes his ally's sudden fall from popularity since allying with Caesar: "swimming in glory," he is now "broken in spirit" and friendless, hated by good and bad alike.

• Ad Atticum 2.23 §2 our friend Sampsiceramus

  "Sampsiceramus" is Cicero's mocking nickname for Pompey, after Sampsiceramus the petty Arab dynast of Emesa whom Pompey had dealt with in the East. It needles Pompey's Eastern conquests and his oriental, would-be-monarchic airs.

• Ad Atticum 3.9 §2 before you came to Pompey

  Atticus had appealed to Pompey on Cicero's behalf; the cold reception drained the consolation from his letters. Pompey had abandoned Cicero to Clodius.

• Ad Atticum 3.18 §1 Pompey would certainly take up our cause

  Pompey's backing was the pivot of Cicero's hopes for recall, but in autumn 58 he held off pending Caesar's assent. His eventual support in 57 proved decisive.

• Ad Atticum 4.5 §1 Pompey's wish

  Cicero notes that the same optimates who approved his actual senatorial votes still resented that he had once spoken against Pompey's interest, evidence of the bad faith he is denouncing in this letter.

• Ad Atticum 4.19 §2 made a legate to Pompey

  Cicero accepted a nominal legateship (legatio libera) under Pompey, who as Spanish proconsul governed through deputies while remaining near Rome; it let Cicero keep a foot outside the city.

• Ad Atticum 5.7 §1 he will nominate five new prefects each year on the ground of their exemption from jury service

  A military prefecture (praefectura) carried exemption from serving on Roman juries; Pompey's promise to appoint five such honorary prefects annually was a means of obliging friends with the privilege without real duties.

• Ad Atticum 5.18 §1 the Senate, in its fear for matters in the City, may be unwilling to send Pompey out

  There was talk of sending Pompey east with a special command against the Parthians, but the Senate feared to leave Rome without him amid the mounting political crisis. Cicero, undermanned in Cilicia, hoped relief would come before his own term was extended.

• Ad Atticum 7.1 §4 in that miraculous third consulship of his

  'Gnaeus our friend' is Pompey, whose sole consulship of 52 BC (here called his 'third') Cicero had supported; the favours owed to Pompey now pull him the opposite way from his debt to Caesar.

• Ad Atticum 7.2 §5 an account of Pompey's conversation at Naples

  Pompey was convalescing near Naples in 50 BC; Atticus had sounded him out and reported his friendly talk about Cicero's standing and his hoped-for triumph, news Cicero found especially welcome.

• Ad Atticum 7.22 §1 unless he has gotten himself aboard ship I think he will be picked off

  Cicero foresees Pompey's only escape from Caesar's pursuit lies in embarking by sea; he was in fact making for Brundisium to ferry his forces across the Adriatic to Greece, which he accomplished in mid-March 49 BC.

• Ad Atticum 7.25 §1 He carried his bad causes through always; in the best of causes he has collapsed

  Cicero's verdict on Pompey: he had prevailed in his earlier, dubious enterprises but failed now in the cause of the Republic, lacking the difficult art of governing the state rightly.

• Ad Atticum 8.2 §3 the breath of one man dangerously sick every year of his life

  A pointed jab at Pompey, who suffered serious recurrent illnesses (a near-fatal fever at Naples in 50 BC was famous). Cicero complains that the whole cause now hangs on the survival of a chronically sick man.

• Ad Atticum 8.4 §3 Gnaeus is making for Brundisium

  "Gnaeus" is Pompey (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus), here named familiarly by praenomen. His move to Brundisium, the great port on Italy's heel, was the prelude to abandoning Italy and crossing to Greece, which is why Cicero adds "the business is finished."

• Ad Atticum 8.6 §1 a letter from Pompey to the consuls

  The consuls of 49, C. Claudius Marcellus and L. Cornelius Lentulus Crus, were with the Pompeian war effort; Cicero copies out Pompey's order to them. The quoted passage that follows (section 2) is Pompey's own words.

• Ad Atticum 8.7 §1 our friend's total disgrace

  "Our friend" is Pompey, named here by bitter euphemism; the disgrace Cicero foresees is his failure to march to the relief of Domitius, besieged at Corfinium. Cicero predicts (rightly) that Pompey will abandon Domitius rather than risk battle.

• Ad Atticum 8.7 §2 I would rather be conquered with Pompey than conquer with those men

  Cicero's own much-quoted formula for his dilemma, which Atticus had praised: he prefers defeat in Pompey's cause to victory in Caesar's. He now qualifies it bitterly --- it held for the Pompey who once was, not for the man now fleeing Italy.

• Ad Atticum 8.8 §1 He had fed Caesar up

  The unnamed "he" through this whole indictment is Pompey, whose conduct Cicero rehearses in a string of bitter pluperfects. The charge is that Pompey first built Caesar up politically, then lost his nerve and abandoned Italy without a plan.

• Ad Atticum 8.11 §2 to stir up barbarian kings, to bring savage tribes into Italy under arms

  Cicero ascribes to Pompey a strategy of abandoning Italy in order to return at the head of foreign forces -- client kings of the East and barbarian levies; he condemns it as making the war a contest for personal mastery rather than a defence of the state.

• Ad Atticum 8.16 §1 they were making vows for him in his sickness

  In the summer of 50 BC Pompey fell gravely ill at Naples and recovered, and the towns of Italy made public vows and held thanksgivings for him; Cicero bitterly contrasts that devotion with their present rush to Caesar. The episode had been read as proof of Pompey's popularity.

• Ad Atticum 9.2 §1 that Gnaeus had embarked well attended and that the consuls had crossed over

  "Gnaeus" is Pompey the Great, named familiarly by praenomen throughout book 9. The two conditions Cicero recalls Atticus setting --- Pompey safely shipped and the consuls of 49 across the Adriatic --- were the trigger that would, in his mind, release him to leave Italy too.

• Ad Atticum 9.6 §3 Pompey has crossed the sea with all the soldiers

  This despatch, quoted verbatim, is the climactic news of the letter: Pompey's successful evacuation from Brundisium across the Adriatic on 4 March 49, with some thirty thousand men, both consuls, the tribunes, and the senators of his party. Its arrival turns Cicero's anxiety into grief at having been left behind.

• Ad Atticum 9.12 §1 Pompey is shut in by a siege-wall

  In March 49 BC Caesar tried to trap Pompey's army inside Brundisium by throwing moles and rafts across the harbour mouth; the report of this blockade is the disaster that prostrates Cicero here.

• Ad Atticum 9.18 §2 those camps which had Pompey under siege

  In March 49 BC Caesar tried to bottle up Pompey inside Brundisium and block his embarkation, throwing up siege-works across the harbour mouth; Pompey nonetheless slipped across the Adriatic to Greece on 17 March.

• Ad Atticum 10.1 §3 to strip Pompey of army and province

  Pompey held a Spanish proconsular command (governed by legates) along with his army; Caesar's fixed aim was to deprive him of both. Cicero judged that no genuine peace talks were possible while this remained Caesar's settled purpose.

• Ad Atticum 10.4 §3 having slipped from his father-in-law's hands and his sword

  Pompey had married Caesar's daughter Julia, so the two were father-in-law and son-in-law even after her death in 54 BC dissolved the bond in practice. Here "the other" is Pompey, who escaped Caesar's pursuit at Brundisium and crossed to Greece to muster his forces.

• Ad Atticum 10.6 §3 Pompey is setting out for Gaul by way of Illyricum

  A false rumour: Pompey had in fact crossed to Greece, not toward Gaul. Cicero's uncertainty about Pompey's route shaped his own dithering over where and how to follow.

• Ad Atticum 10.9 §1 Pompey had marched with great forces into Germany by way of Illyricum

  A garbled rumour, reported "on first authority" yet quite wrong: Pompey had crossed the Adriatic to Greece. The conflicting bulletins reaching Cicero at Cumae show how blind he was to the war's real movements.

• Ad Atticum 11.3 §3 the man I am with is also in straits

  Pompey, in whose camp Cicero then was; Cicero had lent him a large sum, expecting it to redound to his credit once the war was won. Pompey's defeat at Pharsalus (August 48) made the loan a dead loss.

• Ad Atticum 11.6 §5 About Pompey's end

  Pompey, defeated at Pharsalus, fled to Egypt and was murdered on landing in late September 48 BC. Cicero, who had served in his camp, grieves the man even while accepting the collapse of his cause.

• Ad Atticum 11.13 §4 What resources we had, we made over to Pompey

  When Cicero joined Pompey's camp in 49-48 BC he had handed over his ready funds to the war effort, leaving himself short of cash now that the cause had failed. He recalls this to explain his present financial straits.

• Ad Familiares 1.5a §3 transferred to the man to whom it is by now thought practically transferred

  The rival for the Egyptian command was Pompey, whom many in Rome wanted entrusted with restoring the king. Cicero, working for Lentulus, dreads seeing the charge slip to Pompey.

• Ad Familiares 1.5b §2 the man's slowness and silence

  Tarditas et taciturnitas: Cicero's repeated complaint about Pompey's habit of keeping his intentions cryptic and acting only slowly --- a trait that here frustrates the Egyptian plan.

• Ad Familiares 3.4 §2 Cn. Pompeius, your daughter's father-in-law

  One of Appius's daughters married Pompey's elder son, Gnaeus Pompeius the younger; the marriage tie made the great general Appius's connection by marriage.

• Ad Familiares 3.10 §10 your daughter's father-in-law

  Pompey's son Gnaeus had married Appius's daughter, making Pompey and Appius connections by marriage (adfinitas); Cicero leans on his own debt to Pompey to bind himself to Appius.

• Ad Familiares 6.6 §4 not to join himself with Caesar, and afterwards not to break with him

  Cicero's capsule version of his pre-war political counsel: first he warned Pompey not to ally with Caesar (as he later wrote in De Re Publica and elsewhere), then — once the alliance was made — not to rupture it, since he foresaw that the rupture would mean civil war.

• Ad Familiares 6.6 §5 I held that he ought to go into Spain

  Cicero consistently maintained that Pompey should have remained in Italy or crossed to Spain to use his veteran armies there, rather than crossing to Epirus and then Egypt; had Pompey done so, the Caesarian advance across Italy would have met organised resistance.

• Ad Familiares 9.9 §2 He has been driven out of Italy, he has lost the Spains, he has had his veteran army taken from him, and now at last he has been walled in

  Dolabella catalogues Pompey's reverses: his flight from Italy to Greece in early 49, Caesar's defeat of the Pompeian legates Afranius and Petreius in Spain (Ilerda, 49), and the blockade of Pompey's army at Dyrrachium in spring 48 --- written just before the decisive battle of Pharsalus.

• Ad Familiares 9.9 §2 those clientships of kings and nations that he was always so fond of parading

  Pompey's prestige rested heavily on the network of client kings and provinces he had built up through his eastern conquests in the 60s BC; Dolabella sneers that this vaunted patronage now offers him no security.

• Ad Familiares 13.41 §1 Pompey, every time he sees me

  Cn. Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great). At this date (c. 59 BC) Cicero is on close terms with him and acts as an intermediary for Lucceius's affairs, lending the request the weight of Pompey's gratitude as well as his own.

• Ad Familiares 13.75 §2 for three years while Pompey was in charge of that office

  Pompey held the cura annonae, an extraordinary five-year commission over the grain supply granted in 57 BC; while he ran it Avianius had been granted the same favourable terms, which Cicero now asks Titius to renew.

• Ad Familiares 16.10 §2 Pompey was with me

  Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, the great general and dynast; here a friendly visitor curious about Cicero's literary work.

• Ad Quintum Fratrem 2.5 §1 money was decreed to Pompey for the corn-supply up to forty million sesterces

  Pompey held an extraordinary five-year command over Rome's grain supply (cura annonae), granted in 57 BC; here the Senate votes him 40 million sesterces to fund it amid a shortage and high prices.

• Ad Quintum Fratrem 2.5 §3 to the gardens to Pompey

  Pompey's horti, his suburban pleasure-gardens, where Cicero called on him before leaving Rome. Such gardens were grand estates on the city's edge, used for receiving clients and conducting business.

• On His House §16 Cn. Pompeius

  Cicero delegated to Pompey the extraordinary commission over the corn supply, defending the grant of an out-of-the-order command as fully precedented by Pompey's earlier commands against the pirates and Mithridates.

• On the Ends of Good and Evil §2.57 our Pompey is today

  Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (106-48 BC), the leading general and statesman of Cicero's day. He is praised here for using his unrivaled power rightly when he could have abused it without check.

• On Duties §2.57 our Pompey in his second consulship

  Pompey the Great; his games at the dedication of Rome's first permanent stone theatre in 55 BC, his second consulship, were the most magnificent of all. Cicero withholds full approval of such display.

• Against Piso §58 Cn. Pompey ... three times triumphed

  Pompey's three triumphs: African (81 BC, over the Marians), Spanish (71 BC, over Sertorius), and Asian (61 BC, over Mithridates). The most-recorded triple-triumph in Roman history before Caesar.

• On His Return: To the Citizens §16 Cn. Pompeius

  Cn. Pompeius Magnus, who came out decisively for Cicero's recall in 57 BC and whose three-part speech for it Cicero reconstructs here; Cicero's debt to Pompey is the diplomatic centrepiece of the speech.

• Tusculan Disputations §1.86 For our intimate friend Pompey, when he was gravely ill at Naples

  Pompey the Great's near-fatal illness at Naples in 50 BC, when whole towns offered public thanksgiving for his recovery. Cicero argues that an earlier death would have spared him the catastrophes of the civil war, his defeat, flight, and murder in Egypt (48 BC).

• Tusculan Disputations §2.61 what Pompey used to relate

  Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great), who on his way back from the Mithridatic War visited the ailing Posidonius at Rhodes. The anecdote of Posidonius philosophizing through his pain came from Pompey himself.

• Tusculan Disputations §3.66 those who had seen Gnaeus Pompeius falling under his wounds

  Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great), murdered as he landed in Egypt in 48 BC after Pharsalus; his companions, hemmed in by the enemy fleet, fled and only later gave way to grief. Cicero, who knew Pompey well, cites this as fear driving out distress.