Pompey "the Great" [106-48 BCE; murdered]
Gnaeus Pompeius was a highly successful Roman general & statesman in the last decades of the Roman Republic. He played a key role in the victory of the patrician Cornelius Sulla during the civil war with supporters of the populist Gaius Marius (84-78 BCE). After re-conquering Spain, Pompey returned to Italy to help M. Licinius Crassus end the slave rebellion led by the gladiator Spartacus (71 BCE). This led to his election as consul of Rome (70 BCE). Most of the next decade he spent in the eastern Mediterranean consolidating Roman control of Asia Minor & Syria. He stifled a civil war in Judea by intervening in the sibling feud between Aristobulus II & Hyrcanus II. His conquest of Jerusalem (67 BCE) not only subordinated the Jewish state to Rome but ended the Hasmonean monarchy. On the other hand, his support for Antipater paved the way for the Herodian dynasty & involved the rulers of Judea in Roman politics for more than century. |
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Perspective on the World of Jesus
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