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Pompey, rival of Julius Caesar > 
Pompey (the Great), was a distinguished and ambitious Roman military leader, provincial administrator and politician of the 1st century BC, the period of the Late Republic. Hailing from an Italian provincial background, Pompey first distinguished himself as a talented military leader during the dictatorship of Lucius Cornelius Sulla. For his military exploits against pirates in the Mediterranean Sea and in the lands around the eastern Mediterranean, he earned the cognomen of Magnus or the Great. (Although, according to Plutarch's work on the subject, Pompey was awarded this title prior to those campaigns, during some of Sulla's "mopping-up" operations against the Marians.)
Pompey later served Rome in putting down the slave rebellion led by the gladiator Spartacus. To promote his own agenda, Pompey aligned himself with Julius Caesar and Marcus Crassus in the First Triumvirate. Sealing the arrangement, Pompey married Caesar's only daughter, Julia. This agreement, however, was short-lived. After the death of Crassus in 53 BC, Pompey attempted politically to outmanoeuver Caesar, and to dominate personally the affairs of the Roman Republic. These actions sparked a civil war between Pompey's supporters and those of Caesar. Pompey battled Caesar until their final confrontation at the battle of Pharsalus, ending in his defeat. Pompey fled into Egypt, where he was betrayed and ultimately murdered, by Ptolemy XIII of Egypt.
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