page_title: Pompey
section_title: Sicily, Africa and Lepidus' rebellion
hierarchical_section_title: Pompey / Sicily, Africa and Lepidus' rebellion
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Portrait de Pompée Ma 6196 du musée du Louvre Esperanto: Portreto de Pompeo la Granda Ma 6196 de la muzeo de Luvro. English: Portrait of Pompey the Great Ma 6196 from the Louvre
context_page_description: Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, known by the anglicisation Pompey the Great, was a leading Roman general and statesman, whose career was significant in Rome's transformation from a republic to empire. He was for a time a political ally and later enemy of Julius Caesar. A member of the senatorial nobility, Pompey entered a military career while still young and rose to prominence serving the later dictator Sulla as a commander in Sulla's civil war, his success at which earned him the cognomen Magnus – "the Great" – after Pompey's boyhood hero Alexander the Great. His adversaries also gave him the nickname adulescentulus carnifex for his ruthlessness. Pompey's success as a general while still young enabled him to advance directly to his first consulship without meeting the normal cursus honorum. He was consul three times and celebrated three Roman triumphs.
  In 60 BC, Pompey joined Marcus Licinius Crassus and Gaius Julius Caesar in the unofficial military-political alliance known as the First Triumvirate, which Pompey's marriage to Caesar's daughter Julia helped secure. After Crassus and Julia's deaths, Pompey sided with the Optimates, the conservative faction of the Roman Senate.
context_section_description: The survivors of the Marians, those who were exiled after they lost Rome and those who escaped Sulla's persecution of his opponents, were given refuge on Sicily by Marcus Perpenna Vento. Papirius Carbo had a fleet there, and Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus had forced entry into the Roman province of Africa. Sulla sent Pompey to Sicily with a large force. According to Plutarch, Perpenna fled and left Sicily to Pompey. The Sicilian cities had been treated harshly by Perpenna, Pompey treated them with kindness. Pompey "treated Carbo in his misfortunes with an unnatural insolence", taking Carbo in fetters to a tribunal he presided over, examining him closely "to the distress and vexation of the audience", and finally, sentencing him to death. Pompey also treated Quintus Valerius "with unnatural cruelty". His opponents dubbed him adulescentulus carnifex (adolescent butcher). While Pompey was still in Sicily, Sulla ordered him to the province of Africa to fight Gnaeus Domitius who had assembled a large force there. Pompey left his brother-in-law, Gaius Memmius, in control of Sicily and sailed his army to Africa. When he got there, 7,000 of the enemy forces went over to him. Domitius was subsequently defeated at the battle of Utica and died when Pompey attacked his camp. Some cities surrendered, some were taken by storm. King Hiarbas of Numidia, who was an ally of Domitius, was captured and executed. Pompey invaded Numidia and subdued it in forty days; He restored Hiempsal II to the throne. When he returned to the Roman province of Africa, Sulla ordered him to send back the rest of his troops and remain there with one legion to wait for his successor. This turned the soldiers who had to stay behind against Sulla. Pompey said that he would rather kill himself than go against Sulla. When Pompey returned to Rome everyone welcomed him. To outdo them, Sulla saluted him as Magnus (the Great), after Pompey's boyhood hero Alexander the Great, and ordered the others to give him this cognomen.
  Pompey asked for a triumph, but Sulla refused because the law allowed only a consul or a praetor to celebrate a triumph, and said that if Pompey—who was too young even to be a senator—were to do so, he would make both Sulla's regime and his honor odious. Plutarch commented that Pompey "had scarcely grown a beard as yet". Pompey replied that more people worshiped the rising sun than the setting sun, implying that his power was on the increase, while Sulla's was on the wane. According to Plutarch, Sulla did not hear him directly, but saw expressions of astonishment on the faces of those that did. When Sulla asked what Pompey had said, he was taken aback by the comment and cried out twice: "Let him have his triumph!" Pompey tried to enter the city on a chariot drawn by four of the many elephants he had captured in Africa, but the city gate was too narrow and he changed over to his horses. His soldiers, who had not received as much of a share of the war booty as they expected threatened a mutiny, but Pompey said that he did not care and that he would rather give up his triumph. Pompey went ahead with his extra-legal triumph. Sulla was annoyed, but did not want to hinder his career and kept quiet. However, in 79 BC, when Pompey canvassed for Lepidus and succeeded in making him a consul against Sulla's wishes, Sulla warned Pompey to watch out because he had made an adversary stronger than him. He omitted Pompey from his will.
  After Sulla's death (78 BC) Marcus Aemilius Lepidus tried to revive the fortunes of the populares. He became the new leader of the reform movement silenced by Sulla. He tried to prevent Sulla from receiving a state funeral and from having his body buried in the Campus Martius. Pompey opposed this and ensured Sulla's burial with honours. In 77 BC, when Lepidus had left for his proconsular command (he was allocated the provinces of Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul), his political opponents moved against him. He was recalled from his proconsular command. When he refused to return they declared him an enemy of the state. When Lepidus did move
caption: Marble bust of Pompey at the Louvre, Paris
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