On the morning of August 9, 48 bc, Rome’s most famous general–Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, or Pompey the Great–apprehensively prepared his troops to face the army of Rome’s most successful general, Gaius Julius Caesar. Pompey’s unease was fueled by a meteor that had shot across the sky near his camp the night before. To some of his soldiers it was an ill omen. After quelling the disturbance caused by the meteor, Pompey retired to his tent. There he dreamed of being applauded by Rome’s citizens as he dedicated a temple to the goddess Venus, Bringer of Victory. The dream must have made the great commander nervous. Venus was the goddess from whom Caesar’s aristocratic clan, the Julians, claimed to be descended. Though unknown to Pompey at the time, Caesar had vowed that very day that if Venus brought him victory at Pharsalus he would build a great temple to her in Rome.

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Prelude to Battle
Almost two years before the two rivals met at Pharsalus, the Roman Republic, split by a half century of political unrest, had drifted into civil war. Pompey led the patrician faction, the optimates, composed of Rome’s aristocrats and senators. Caesar led the populist faction, the populares, nobles supported by Rome’s farmers, veterans and middle class. The roads that led these two great generals–relatives by marriage and former allies–to duel under the Greek sun are a testament to the turbulent politics of the republic’s last century.

Pompey began his career as a handsome, energetic young officer serving in the patrician armies of the Roman dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Pompey’s campaigns against the populares in Sicily, Spain and North Africa, and in Italy against Spartacus’ fugitive gladiators in 71 bc, earned him the title Magnus, or Great, from his troops. The ambitious young general twice wrested from his government a triumph, Rome’s highest military honor–and one to which he was not technically entitled. In late 71 bc, Pompey and his rival Marcus Licinius Crassus were elected consuls, Rome’s two highest offices for the year 70. Pompey was virtually made a dictator in 67 when the People’s Assembly, Rome’s theoretical governing body, elected him to combat the widespread problem of piracy in the Mediterranean Sea. Although Pompey’s term was scheduled to last an unprecedented three years, through his extraordinary administrative skill and a brilliant concentration of Rome’s forces, he successfully completed his assignment in only three months.

In 66 bc, Pompey was appointed to another extraordinary command, this time against King Mithridates IV, ruler of the eastern kingdom of Pontus. Although outnumbered, Pompey defeated Mithridates at the Euphrates River and pursued him to the shores of the Black Sea. Pompey then marched throughout the East, founding cities and extending Rome’s power throughout Albania, the Red Sea region, Palestine, Syria, Armenia, Mesopotamia and Arabia.

When he returned to Rome in 62, Pompey was hailed by the citizenry as the greatest commander of his age. Unlike Sulla or the populist tyrant Gaius Marius, however, Pompey disbanded his troops upon his return and peacefully resumed a political career. Pompey’s political skill lagged far behind his military prowess, however, and he was unable to win large bonuses or farmlands for his veterans. To his humiliation, he could not even persuade the Senate to ratify the treaties he made with the eastern kingdoms until 59.

While Pompey was being lauded for his military accomplishments, a stylish rival was beginning a career that would eclipse that of his more famous contemporary. Gaius Julius Caesar, a former priest from the Julii clan, threw in his lot with the populares faction by marrying the daughter of one of Sulla’s enemies. He married into the families of Pompey and Sulla after the death of his first wife and supported Pompey in the Senate, but he also publicly championed liberal causes to garner support among the populists.

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