Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (son of Pompey)

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus died on the 12th of April 45 BC, cornered and killed by a man named Lucius Caesennius Lento, weeks after watching his army shatter at a battle in southern Spain. He was perhaps thirty years old. His name was identical to his father's. His fate was not.

  His father was Pompey the Great, one of Rome's finest generals, a man who had built an enormous military reputation and drifted toward the conservative faction of Roman politics only when Julius Caesar became a threat. The younger Gnaeus grew up in that enormous shadow, alongside his brother Sextus. When the civil war began, the brothers followed their father east. What followed was years of flight, of regrouping, of raising armies only to lose them, of surviving battles that killed tens of thousands around them. The question this documentary tries to answer is simple: who was the elder son of Pompey, and what did his decade of resistance to Caesar actually look like?

• 2. Caesar Crosses, Father Falls

  ›

  When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC, the act ignited a civil war that upended nearly every Roman political arrangement that had existed for a generation. Gnaeus was in his mid-twenties, and he followed his father east along with most of the conservative senators who had aligned themselves against Caesar.

  Pompey the Great's army met Caesar's at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC and lost. Pompey himself fled the field and ran for his life to Egypt. He did not survive the journey. On the 29th of September 48 BC, he was murdered there. The elder son, suddenly without a father and without a cause that still had a living figurehead, had to find another way to keep fighting.

• 3. Africa, Rebuke, and Defeat

  ›

  After their father's murder, Gnaeus and his brother Sextus crossed into the Africa Province and joined a coalition of senators still willing to resist Caesar. The group included Metellus Scipio, Cato, and others who refused to concede the war.

  Cato, one of the coalition's most prominent figures, did not receive Gnaeus warmly. He told him directly that his father had accomplished far more at the same age. The rebuke stung enough that Gnaeus launched an independent attack on Mauretania, to the west, apparently trying to prove himself. The campaign failed at the Battle of Ascurum, and Gnaeus was forced to flee again, this time to the Balearic Islands off the eastern coast of Spain.

  The wider resistance in Africa did not fare better. At the Battle of Thapsus in 46 BC, Caesar crushed the forces of Metellus Scipio and Cato. Cato subsequently took his own life rather than submit. Sextus, now also without allies in Africa, crossed to the Balearic Islands to join his brother.

• 4. Hispania and One Last Army

  ›

  From the Balearic Islands, the two brothers crossed over to Hispania, the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula covering what is now Spain and Portugal. They did not arrive alone. Titus Labienus came with them, a general who had served under Caesar himself before switching sides, which made him both a valuable asset and a symbolic prize for the Pompeian cause.

  In Hispania the brothers managed to raise yet another army. The source does not specify how large or how long it took, but the force was substantial enough that Caesar treated it as a serious threat and followed them there personally. The two sides faced each other on the 17th of March 45 BC at the Battle of Munda.

• 5. Munda and Its Aftermath

  ›

  At Munda, both armies were large and the commanders on each side were experienced. The battle was closely contested until a cavalry charge by Caesar shifted the momentum decisively to his side. What followed was a catastrophe for the Pompeian force. In the fighting and the panicked retreat that followed, Titus Labienus was killed along with an estimated 30,000 men of the Pompeian side.

  Gnaeus and Sextus survived the battle and fled once more. But this time the political landscape had closed around them. Finding supporters had become nearly impossible. Caesar had, by this point, effectively won the civil war. Within a few weeks of Munda, Gnaeus was tracked down and killed by Lucius Caesennius Lento. He had outlived his father by just over three years.

• 6. The Brother Who Lasted

  ›

  Sextus Pompey, the younger brother, managed something Gnaeus never could. He stayed one step ahead of his enemies for another decade after Gnaeus died.

  Sextus built what amounted to a semi-independent kingdom in Sicily, backed by a powerful naval fleet. His strength on the sea grew to the point where the Second Triumvirate, the political alliance that had formed after Caesar's assassination, had to deal with him rather than simply destroy him. It was not until Augustus sent his general Marcus Agrippa to fight the conflict known as the Bellum Siculum that Sextus was finally defeated and executed. The contrast with his older brother is stark: Gnaeus lasted weeks after Munda; Sextus lasted years, and required one of Rome's most capable commanders to finish him off.

• 7. Marriage and No Heirs

  ›

  Gnaeus Pompeius married Claudia Pulcra, a daughter of Appius Claudius Pulcher. Through her mother's family she was a sister of the first wife of Marcus Junius Brutus, who would later become famous as one of Caesar's assassins. Claudia outlived Gnaeus. The marriage produced no children, which meant the line of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus ended with him. The Pompeian name continued only through Sextus, whose own career would eventually close out the family's role in Roman republican resistance.