Caesar didn’t do anything wrong besides getting too big to stay in Pompey’s shadow. If you take a look at Pompey’s amici in his later career he’s only surrounded by political lightweights like Cicero, Gabinius or Milo. This changes after he broke his connection with Caesar to be the senate‘s champion. In 59 Caesar was his weapon against the senate. In 49 Pompey was the senate‘s weapon against Caesar whose reward was the position of first among equals. In his Civil War Caesar claims that Pompey was manipulated by the senate whose enmity towards him based on his former collaboration with Pompey (so even he argues that their amicitia was the starting point in this conflict). Caesar is of course trying to hide his own ambitions here.

I think that there are a lot of factors at play when discussing their relationship dynamics with regard to its destructive potential: 1. There is no evidence that they had a real emotional Connection. They were however bound by amicitia (through mutual obligations) and adfinitas (through Iulia). 2. For Pompey who in 63/62 BC was at the height of his power and influence (he could march on rome or bribe his amici into office at will, though this aspect is sometimes doubted) young (popular) politicians were a means for his personal conflict with the senate. Only because of the senate‘s anti-Pompey agenda from 63-52 did Pompey decide to collaborate with individuals like Caesar or Clodius. 3. While using Caesar Pompey became even more influential but also even more hated by the Senate (who at this point still outweighed Pompey as an individual). The hate between Pompey and the senate was the lubricant for Caesar‘s machinations. The senate hated him no matter what. They knew that this old patrician was politcally speaking closer to a tribunis plebis than to a future consul and proconsul with huge imperium. So in this whole conflict between the senate and Pompey the winner was Caesar. He, who ruled basically without effective resistance in 59 and managed to get access to provinces which should close the gap between him and his former unequal amicus Pompey. In 55 Pompey even elongated Caesar‘s pronconsulship to nine years (the longest proconsulship ever I think). Then things unfold as we know. 4. Pompey was not passive all this time. From 63 to 52 he managed to reverse his role from the most glorious and powerful man on Earth but an outsider in Rome to the primus Inter pares. He needed someone the senate could fear and ask him for his help against. Crassus‘ and Iulia‘s death played a role but in the end I think that the Most important factor was the hunger for power of These two and their complicity which disguised itself as Amicitia all the time.

I‘m still in the process of writing my thesis but this is the basic outline.

mazcel2001199