Pompey - Caesar and The First Triumvirate

Caesar and The First Triumvirate

Although Pompey and Crassus distrusted each other, Crassus' tax farming clients were being rebuffed at the same time Pompey's veterans were being ignored, and by 61 BC, their grievances had pushed them both into an alliance with Caesar, six years younger than Pompey, returning from service in Hispania, and ready to seek the consulship for 59 BC. Their political alliance, known as the First Triumvirate, operated to the benefit of each. Pompey and Crassus would make Caesar Consul, and Caesar would use his consular power to promote their claims.

Caesar's consulship of 59 BC brought Pompey land for his veterans, confirmation of his Asian political settlements and a new wife. She was Caesar's daughter, Julia; Pompey was said to be besotted by her. In the same year, Clodius renounced his patrician status, was adopted into a plebian gens and was elected a Tribune of the plebs. At the end of his consulship, Caesar secured proconsular command in Gaul. Pompey was given the governorship of Hispania Ulterior, but remained in Rome to oversee the grain supply as curator annonae.

Despite his preoccupation with his new wife, Pompey handled the grain issue well. His political acumen was less sure. When Clodius turned on him in turn, Pompey defended himself by supporting Cicero's recall from exile (57 BC). Once back in Rome, Cicero stepped back into his role as Pompey's defender and Clodius' antagonist, but Pompey himself retreated to his lovely young wife and his theatre plans; such behaviour was not expected of the once dazzling young general.

Pompey might equally have been obsessed, exhausted and frustrated. His own party had not forgiven him for allowing Cicero's expulsion. Some tried to persuade him that Crassus was plotting his assassination. Meanwhile, Caesar seemed set on outstripping both his colleagues in generalship and popularity.

By 56 BC, the bonds between the three men were fraying. Caesar called first Crassus, then Pompey, to a secret meeting, the Lucca Conference, in the northern Italian town of Lucca to rethink their joint strategy. They agreed that Pompey and Crassus would again stand for the consulship in 55 BC. Once elected, they would extend Caesar's command in Gaul by five years. At the end of their joint consular year, Crassus would have the influential and lucrative governorship of Syria, and use this as a base to conquer Parthia. Pompey would keep Hispania in absentia.

In 55 BC, Pompey and Crassus were elected as consuls, against a background of bribery, civil unrest and electioneering violence. Pompey's new theatre was inaugurated in the same year. It was Rome's first permanent theatre, a gigantic, architecturally daring, self-contained complex on the Campus Martius, complete with shops, multi-service buildings, gardens and a temple to Venus Victrix. The latter connected its donor to Aeneas, a son of Venus and ancestor of Rome itself. In its portico, the statuary, paintings and personal wealth of foreign kings could be admired at leisure. Pompey's triumph lived on. His theatre made an ideal meetingplace for his supporters.