This is part of a larger project I am working on. These are just raw reactions to the text as I read it. For the final discussion, check out my Substack.
Plutarch presents the lives of Agesilaus and Pompey as cautionary tales of the disaster and waste that is civil war.
Agesilaus was a Spartan king, who was never originally intended for the line of succession. However, Lysander noted potential in Agesilaus when he was young, and, when a path to the throne opened up for Agesilaus, Lysander supported his ascension.
While this was going on, Persia was increasing its presence in the eastern Aegean. Sparta had defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian War, and Persia was quickly trying to fill the vacuum of power and retake lands it had lost as far back as the Greco-Persian War. Agesilaus and Lysander traveled east to try and stop the Persian encroachment.
In Anatolia, there was a falling out between Agesilaus and Lysander, and Agesilaus sent Lysander to the Bosporus, where he grew further disaffected with the Spartan king, attempted to establish his own lands, and died in the ensuing contests. Sparta could have had two great commanders in Anatolia, but mutual discord robbed the state of that benefit, a foreshadowing of things to come for all of Greece.
Meanwhile, Agesilaus was finding plenty of success in Anatolia against the Persians. He added a cavalry force to his heavy infantry army, and provided it with light infantry support as well. He was aware of Xenophon’s campaign in Persian lands just a few years before because Xenophon himself was an advisor to Agesilaus, and Agesilaus planned to take advantage of the apparent weakness of the Persian state. However, Agesilaus did not get to undertake the campaign that Alexander “the Great” would soon embark on in just a few years. Word arrived from Sparta that yet another internecine conflict had erupted in Greece.
Sparta was the ruling hegemon in Greece after it’s sacking of Athens, but Sparta governed with a heavy hand, imposing oligarchic forms of government throughout the Greek world. Athens, Thebes, and Corinth smarted at this and led a rebellion against the Spartans.
Agesilaus returned home and campaigned successfully against many of the rival Greek city-states. He was especially focused on Thebes, in part because it had been the primary driver of the rebellion and, therefore, the main culprit in denying him his eastern campaign against Persia. Eventually, thanks to Persian silver, the Spartans were defeated in battle and Spartan lands themselves invaded, something that had never happened before. A balance of power agreement between the Greek cities was negotiated, and Agesilaus left for Egypt in disgust.
He attempted to raise a mercenary force for the king of Egypt, who was fighting his own war against the Persians. However, Egyptian politics were very unstable in this period, and Agesilaus sailed back for Greece, dying on the ship before he touched Greek soil again. His talents were largely wasted on fratricidal contests.
Pompey came from a distinguished Roman family and his father had been a general. He was relatively young when the war between Marius and Sulla broke out, but he was full of ambition. He raised a force of soldiers to offer up to Sulla’s side and beat off attacks by three separate Marian armies to deliver his troops to Sulla’s camp.
He became a close associate of Sulla’s and was given the governorship of Sicily, where they were still securing their victories. He later was sent to north Africa and won a battle through attention to detail and audacity. He put down the attempted rebellion in Carthage and then invaded Numidia, adding that country to the Roman empire.
He returned from Africa a hero and used that fame to get Sulla to grant him a triumph, despite the fact that he wasn’t even old enough to be a senator. Upon Sulla’s death, he fought for the senatorial faction against the old supporters of Marius and the people.
Pompey next sought command of the war in Spain against Sertorius, the former Marian officer. He fought an indecisive major action against Sertorius, who then fell back on his old hit and run attacks, driving Pompey out of Spain. Pompey wrote to Rome saying he needed supplies or else he would have to march back. Lucullus, then consul, found the supplies, lest Pompey come near Rome with a disgruntled army or Pompey be in a position to take command of the growing war against Mithridates, which would be far more attractive a position. Sertorius was murdered by his own officers in a coup and Pompey defeated his successor using a ruse de guerre.
Back in Rome, he won the love of the people by making sure to disband his army before entering the city, so as not to be seen as a threat to the government.
He was appointed admiral to deal with out of control piracy in the Mediterranean that had resulted from the civil war and ended it relatively quickly by organizing a rational system of patrols and naval defenses, then personally leading a naval attack on the primary pirate base.
The war with the pirates over, the Senate voted for Pompey to take command of Lucullus‘ forces in Syria fighting Mithradates. Added to his powers over the Mediterranean Sea and its littoral areas, Pompey had been given nearly unheard of powers and military authority. He claimed to feel burdened, but no one really believed him.
He invaded Anatolia, defeating Mithridates’ forces in a night engagement and then struck into Armenia, invited by the heir to the Armenian throne to help overthrow his father. The father preemptively surrendered to Pompey and preserved his crown as a subject of Rome.
Pompey returned to Rome and received a splendid Triumph. He then got more involved in domestic politics and aided Caesar’s rise. Caesar sought to reconcile Crassus and Pompey and inserted himself into their scheming to hold sway against the faction led by Cicero and Cato. They used their wealth to buy votes in the tribunate, much to the disgust of the Senate and portrayed themselves as the protector the people against the excesses of the Senate. While Caesar was back from Gaul, he, Pompey, and Crassus officially began the First Triumvirate, with Caesar in Gaul, Pompey in Spain, and Crassus in Syria.
While Ceasar was continuing to triumph in Gaul, Pompey’s wife (Ceasar’s daughter) died. Crassus also died fighting in Iraq, and, all of a sudden all eyes were on Pompey and Ceasar to see what these two extraordinarily powerful men would do. Fearing Ceasar’s large army, the Senate voted Pompey sole consul, something that had never been done before, as a check on Ceasar’s raw military power.
A standoff occurred when Ceasar asked to be allowed to stand for the office of consul (remotely) or allowed to continue his governorship of Gaul, and thus keep an army under his command for protection. He was told he would have to, as was tradition, relinquish command of the army and come to Rome as a private citizen in order to stand for consul. Pompey’s intelligence told him that Ceasar’s legions were in awe of Pompey and would never side with Ceasar over Pompey if a dispute arose.
There were attempts at negotiating a mutual disarmament of Ceasar and Pompey’s forces, but Pompey’s side did not buy it. However, to the average Roman, it seemed that Ceasar’s request was justifiable and they did not support Pompey’s attempts to raise more troops to defend Rome from Ceasar. Ceasar struck into Italy with a small mobile force, the speed of which stunned the Pompeian faction and encouraged them to flee Italy without a fight.
Pompey and portions of the Senate fled across the Adriatic and encamped in Macedonia to build and army, Pompey’s actual forces, based in Spain, having already been defeated by Ceasar. Ceasar pursued, and Pompey failed to attack him on the shore when Ceasar was most vulnerable. Some senators called for Pompey to use his naval advantage to strike elsewhere, but Pompey refused to cede the field a second time to Ceasar, and also put the many allied senators in Greece and Thessaly at risk.
Goaded on by a fear that what was left of the Senate would conspire against him if he didn’t act with more alacrity, Pompey engaged Caesar and his veteran army head on at Pharsalus. He was handily defeated, fled to Egypt, and the Egyptians murdered him, thinking that would win them Caesar’s favor.
Plutarch seems almost pained as he describes the assembled armies of Caesar and Pompey at Pharsalus, more than 50,000 highly trained Roman soldiers assembled for no reason other than killing their fellow Romans. With there still plenty of Rome for Rome to expand north and east, why did these generals waste their talents and their fellow citizens lives killing each other?
Similarly, Agesilaus had to abandon what would have been quite possibly a successful Greek campaign into western Asia, like the Macedonian Alexander would do in short order. The conquest of Persia, the final retribution for their attacks at Marathon and Salamis, could have been at Greek hands as opposed to Macedonians, if only the Greeks could have unified.
Instead, Greece was conquered by Macedon, Macedon by the Romans, and the Romans by the Turks. The Roman Republic was at the height of its power, until years of civil infighting. Though the boarders of the empire would slightly expand under the emperors, Rome never really undertook the offense again like it had under the republic. Pharsalus was in some ways the beginning of the end for Rome. it head weathered the conflict between Marius and Sulla, but it had failed to learn its lessons and the cost of civil war.
If you’re interested in the final discussion of the book, check out my Substack.
The History Doctor 
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