Pompey the Great

Hannibal was born 247 BC, the son of Hamilcar Barca, the current General of the Carthaginian Army. Hannibal's training as a military leader began at the age of nine when he went to Spain to be with his father. At Hamilcar's request Hannibal pledged an oath of hate towards the Roman Empire because of Carthages lost to the Romans in the First Punic War (261-241 BC). After Hamilcar's death in 228 BC, Hannibal's brother in law, Hasdrubal, assumed command of the Carthaginian Army. Seven years, in 221BC, Hasdrubal was assassinated.

The year 509 BC Rome finally became a Republic and thus started the Roman empire. As Rome rose to power they went through many wars and many conflicts between the plebeians and patricians. The republic was made out of 3 groups, the consuls which were 2 men elected from the senate, the senate which was made of 300 patricians, and the assembly made from plebeians. Many years later Rome started to reject the republic when it went into a series of civil wars. 3 men form the first triumvirate, Julius Caesar, Pompeii, and Crassus.

Unable to gain office, he left Rome again and went to Rhodes, where he studied rhetoric; he returned to Rome in 73 BC, a very persuasive speaker. The year before, while still absent, he had been elected to the pontificate, an important college of Roman priests. In 71 BC Pompey the Great, who had earned his epithet in service under Sulla, returned to Rome, having defeated the rebellious populares general Sertorius in Spain. At the same time Marcus Crassus, a rich patrician, suppressed in Italy the slave revolt led by Spartacus. Pompey and Crassus both ran for the consulship—an office held by two men—in 70 BC.

(Winks) On the Gallic side, his victories meant the spread of Roman language and civilization. Caesar defied an order from the Senate to give up his command and stay in Gaul, and he led his loyal troops south across the Rubicon River boundary, beginning a civil war. Within a few weeks Caesar was master of Italy. He then won another in Spain, and he defeated Pompey’s troops in Greece, to which most of the Senate had fled... ... middle of paper ... ...litical hotbed of rival classes and contenders for power. Augustus had seen Caesar’s rise to power and the awful way in which Caesar’s rule was ended.

The First Triumvirate included Pompey the Great, and Marcus Licinius Crassus, along with Julius Caesar. (Balsdon 75) In seventy one BC Pompey the Great, who had earned his epithet in service under Sulla, returned to Rome, after having defeated the ever so popular general Sertorius in Spain. At the same time Pompey was returning to Rome, Marcus Licinius Crassus, a rich aristocrat, was restrained in Italy. (White 14) Pompey and Crassus ran for the position of consulship, and since it was a position held by two men they both won. Even though Pompey at this time was ineligible Julius Caesar helped him win.

(Grant, p.9-11)In the Roman political world Pompey and Crassus challenged the dominance of the optimates. Quintus Latatius Catulus and Lucius Licinius Lucullus led the optimates. Sulla was responsible for creating their careers. Caesar married Pompeia after Cornelia’s death. Then, in sixty-five BC he was appointed aedile.

When Julius was stabbed to death in 44 BC, 19-year-old Augustus (vroma), went to Rome to collect his inheritance as the direct heir of Julius (Divine). Augustus created a new triumvirate with two other men when he went to Rome: Mark Antony, a close friend of Julius, and Marcus Lepidus, a general in Julius’s army (12). The first thing that Augustus did with his new power, was pursue revenge for his uncle’s death. The triumvirate hunted down the conspirators to Greece (PBS), where they waged a war against Brutus and Cassius at Phillipi and defeated them in two battles (12). After defeating the conspirators of Julius’s death, Antony and Augustus pushed Marcus Lepidus aside so that they could have more power for themselves.

The gates of Capua, one of the Italian cities that had fallen to Hannibal in consequence of his victory at Cannae, were opened to him. then Hannibal attempted to take Rome, but the Romans successfully maintained their fixed positions. The Romans then retook Capua. After four years of inconclusive fighting, Hannibal turned for aid to his brother Hasdrubal, who forthwith marched from Spain. Hasdrubal, however, was surprised, defeated, and slain by the Roman consul Gaius Claudius Nero in the Battle of the Metauro River.

Given Caesar’s family connections to Marius and his recent marriage to the daughter of Cinna (one of Marius’s allies), Sulla’s appointed dictatorship was a potential threat to the 18-year-old. In order to symbolically prove Caesar’s loyalty to the optimates, Sulla ordered him to divorce Cornelia. When Caesar refused and thus decisively identified with the popularis, Sulla pardoned him and supposedly predicted, “In this young man, there is more than one Marius.” Between the years 81 and 74 BC, Caesar avoided politics and instead served as a diplomat in Asia Minor and practiced criminal law in Italy after Sulla’s death in 78. The true birth of his political career would not come until 74 BC when Mithridates of Pontus attacked Asia Minor. Under his own initiative and expense... ... middle of paper ... ...nd, in a historic act of rebellion, crossed the Rubicon river into Rome, officially waging war against the City’s leaders.

Hannibal (b. 247 BC, North Africa--d. c. 183-181, Libyssa, Bithynia), Phoenician Carthaginian general, one of the great military leaders of antiquity, who commanded the Carthaginian forces against Rome in the Second Punic War (218-201 BC). Early life Hannibal was the son of the great Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca. According to Polybius and Livy, the main Latin sources for his life, Hannibal was taken to Spain by his father and at an early age was made to swear eternal hostility to Rome. From the death of his father in 229/228 until his own death c. 183, Hannibal's life was one of constant struggle against the Roman republic.