diagnosis
Pompey could have defeated Caesar by starving Italy, but elite fear of Pompey becoming king forced a battle that Caesar’s loyal army won.
Topic brief
A Jiang Lens evidence brief for this topic, built from source tags, transcript matches, and linked source refs.
Pompey
Pompey's best strategy is containment: because Pompey controls Rome's food provinces, he can wait for hunger, troop disloyalty, and Roman resentment to weaken Caesar.
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Key Notes
evidence
Caesar forms the First Triumvirate with Pompey and Crassus because all three are blocked by the Senate and can trade political support for each other's goals.
evidence
At the start of the Caesar-Pompey civil war, Caesar controls Rome and poor Gaul while Pompey and the optimates control Spain, Greece, Anatolia, Syria, and North Africa, including Rome's food supply.
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model
Pompey's best strategy is containment: because Pompey controls Rome's food provinces, he can wait for hunger, troop disloyalty, and Roman resentment to weaken Caesar.
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diagnosis
Caesar faces one man versus an entire empire, but he has a highly disciplined, personally devoted army and opponents divided by distrust of Pompey's growing power.
evidence
At Pharsalus, optimate pressure overrides Pompey's preferred containment strategy, and Caesar's disciplined army withstands the cavalry hammer-and-anvil maneuver.
evidence
Pompey and Crassus were optimates and former supporters of Sulla, while Caesar was a populare, making their alliance secret and unexpected.
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Timestamped Evidence
Transcript
"...that the Ottomans are really stupid, arrogant, and lazy. Okay? So, Pompey, General Pompey, is fighting for the Ottomans, and he's going against Caesar."
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"And Pompey's strategy, it's really simple. Okay? Caesar has control over Italy. There's a problem, though. Italy is poor. It does not produce enough..."
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"...in this battle, because Caesar has a loyal army, they defeat Pompey, even though Pompey has more soldiers. Okay? And then what Caesar will..."
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"...two other individuals that the Senate hates. Okay? The first is Pompey, and Pompey is considered the greatest general of Rome. Okay? Pompey is..."
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"Okay? So Caesar, as counsel, will help settle the veterans of Pompey. He'll promote some tax reform that Crassus wants. And in return, Pompey..."
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"Everyone back here are not allowed to say anything. Okay? Because you go in turns. The people who sit at the front are the..."
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"...its food from the provinces. Okay? So in other words, all Pompey has to do is wait. This is what we call a containment..."
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"...and Scipio, they don't really, they hate Caesar. They don't trust Pompey either. Right? Because as this war continues, more and more power will..."
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"...And then he marches to Greece. And again, at this point, Pompey doesn't have to do anything. And Pompey doesn't want to do anything..."
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"Pompey chooses to use the anvil and hammer strategy. Remember what the anvil and hammer strategy is, where your infantry locks the enemy, the..."
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"Oh. Okay. So Pompey and Crassus and Caesar, how did they form their alliance? Right? Okay. So the first thing to understand is Pompey..."
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"...At this time, which is about like 50 BCE in Rome, Pompey the Great is the greatest general."
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Relevant Lectures And Readings
Reading
A source-grounded reading of Jiang's Roman lecture: Rome begins as a poor borderland war machine, invents a liberty of obedience, uses Greek historians and Augustan poets to launder violence, and reaches its deepest secret...
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Julius Caesar was not only a general or politician.
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Related Topics
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