Sextus Pompeius

by Anton Powell, Kathryn Welch

The son of Pompey the Great cast a long shadow. Acclaimed by the Roman populace in his lifetime, his traditional virtues and military successes put to shame his civil-war rival Octavian. After his death, he was passionately and safely abused by Octavian and Augustan writers as a marginal nuisance, a pirate. The image of a 'second rank' figure has been propagated by scholars into recent times. But a very different story can now be constructed, from the testimony of historians and poets in antiquity and from the eloquent and long-neglected coinage of Sextus Pompeius himself. Here ten studies from an international cast reveal a figure whose actions and image shaped the ethos not just of the civil-war period but of the early Principate.

302 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2002

About the author

Anton Powell (born 1947) teaches Greek classics at the University of Wales. He is the author of several books and lives in the countryside of Wales.

Reviews

[Denis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This scholarly work will not appeal to most general readers, but it presents a detailed, innovative look at a relatively obscure Roman patriot, Sextus Pompey, the younger son of Pompey the Great. The book is a collection of erudite essays on aspects of Sextus's life and times. A deliberate campaign of "cancellation" of Sextus by the triumvir Octavian (later the first Emperor) is outlined and explained. The authors demonstrate how Sextus, despite Octavian's attempt to cast Sextus as a minor nuisance to his ambition, was in fact a real threat to Octavian and a popular figure with many of the Roman people.

The authors dug deep to resurrect Sextus from obscurity and present plausible analyses for his actions and motivations. What are quite fascinating are the detailed studies of Sextus's coinage as clues to his persona, filling in the gaps in the contemporary written accounts. Photographs of the coins issued by or related to Sextus and his family are included as an appendix. Finally, Sextus's famous encounter with the hideous Thessalian witch Erichtho, in which he supposedly sought a prophecy of the result of decisive Battle of Pharsalus, is reviewed in detail. It is demonstrated to be entirely fictional, as Sextus was not even at Pharsalus, and merely a literary device of Lucan.

This book may be a "tough read" for anyone unfamiliar with the players in the drama of the end of the Roman Republic, but it is well-researched, extensively footnoted, and a revelation to interested students of Roman history.

[tori · Rating 5 out of 5]

A much-needed re-examination of Sextus Pompey by some of the foremost authors in Late Republican literature and history.