Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3a.pdf/772

POM in Pontus, he reduced this country to a Roman province. In the spring he marched into Syria, deposed its king, and converted it also into a Roman province, 64. In 63. he carried the Roman arms into Phenicia, Coele-Syria, and Palestine. In the last-named country he was opposed by the Jews in Jerusalem, so that he had to besiege the city three months before it was taken. Hyrcanus was reinstated, and Aristobulus carried away. Having thus subdued the East to the Roman dominion, he returned to Rome 62. A magnificent triumph was celebrated, and unprecedented honour shown to the military hero who had made the Roman name feared throughout the world. The aristocratic party and the patriots who sought to restore a republican form of government, soon began to show their jealousy of one who wielded such predominant influence. They looked on him with distrust and fear. Hence he was driven into the arms of the democratic party, especially as the senate refused to sanction all his acts in Asia, and an assignment of lands to his soldiers. Pompey therefore associated himself with Cæsar, and was also reconciled to Crassus. The three formed the first triumvirate; and Julia, Cæsar's daughter, was given in marriage to Pompey. After this Cæsar went to Gaul. In consequence of Clodius' conduct in restoring Tigranes to liberty, and ridiculing Pompey himself, the latter procured Cicero's recall in 57 .; because præfectus annonæ for five years, and went to Sicily to collect corn. When Clodius supplanted him in popular favour and the senate showed their hostility, he felt that his power was waning, and repaired to Cæsar at Lucca, where he and Crassus became friends, and the three entered into a secret compact. At length, after much opposition, Pompey and Crassus became consuls a second time 55 ., and passed two bills, the one prolonging Cæsar's government for five years, the other for dividing between them the two Spains and Syria. Pompey remained in the neighbourhood of the city, having sent his two legates into Spain; and evidently aimed at the sole sovereignty. The death of Crassus in 53. broke the triumvirate; the death of Julia 54. had already dissociated him in part from Cæsar. In consequence of the distracted state of the city and the anarchy prevailing, the senate were compelled to call in his aid, and he was accordingly chosen sole consul. After order had been restored, he made his father-in-law, Metellus Scipio, his colleague. Various measures of his were now aimed at Cæsar, whose rivalry he seems to have dreaded. He threw himself again into the arms of the aristocratic party, and became their acknowledged head. This accelerated the breach between him and Cæsar. In 50. the aristocracy required Cæsar to resign his province, and come to Rome as a private man, to be a candidate for the consulship. This he consented to do if Pompey would do the same, which, however, the latter refused. Hence Cæsar saw no other alternative than war, for which he was well prepared, while Pompey was not. In 49 ., from the senate decreeing that he should disband his army by a certain day or be considered the enemy of the state, Cæsar passed the Rubicon, and advanced against Rome with a single legion. His reception was enthusiastic in all the Italian towns; and even the troops of the aristocracy flew to his standard. Pompey's hopes being now fatally disappointed, he fled to Capua, and thence to Brundisium, followed by Cæsar. As he could not long defend Brundisium, he went to Greece. In the beginning of 48. Cæsar also appeared in Greece, ready for active operations. Though Pompey's army was far greater in numbers, he feared the superior skill and discipline of Cæsar's men; and therefore formed a plan for wearing his enemy out instead of coming to a decisive engagement. Unfortunately the nobles and aristocrats, anxious for victory and confident of success, stimulated him to the risk of a battle on the plain of Pharsalia, where he suffered a total defeat. Having sailed first to Lesbos, and then to Pamphylia, he turned to Egypt, where he might naturally calculate on a favourable reception, because of the services he had rendered to the young king's father. But the three regents of the minor caused him to be treacherously murdered in the small boat before he landed, without obtaining the thanks of the victor, who arrived a few days after. Pompey was assassinated September 29, 48 ., at the age of fifty-eight. He was a warrior, not a politician—ambitious, proud, and vain, intent on his own aggrandizement, and exacting the deference of others. Yet he was just and generous too, free from many of the lower passions which disgraced Rome in his day. He lost his superiority by a want of constant adherence to one party, and an inability to retain the affections of his friends. Military glory alone could not keep the multitude attached to his person; since he had few talents except those connected with the art of war.—S. D.  POMPEIUS,, the eldest son of the preceding by his third wife Mucia, was born about 78. When the war broke out in 49. he went to Alexandria to get supplies for his father; and after returning with a fleet to the Adriatic, took some of Cæsar's vessels. When Pompey the Great was defeated by Cæsar, the son went to Corcyra, and thence to Africa, where however he did not remain long after hearing of his father's murder. Sailing to Spain he was joined by his brother Sextus, and collected a considerable force. Cæsar at first sent Didius his legate against him, and then went himself, 46. The battle of Munda, March 17th, 45 ., decided the fate of the Pompeian party. The Pompeians were defeated after a bloody fight, and Cneius Pompey himself narrowly escaped. He was pursued, however, by Didius, and his ships destroyed. The soldiers in pursuit of him put him to death, and his head was exposed in Hispalis. In character and disposition he seems to occupy a lower position than his father, being vindictive and cruel.—S. D.  POMPIGNAN,, Prelate, was born at Montauban in 1715. He held the bishoprics first of Puy and then of Vienne; and at the Revolution was chosen deputy from Dauphiné to the constituent assembly, and became one of the ministry. In this situation he was written to by the pope to use all his zeal for the advancement of the church. He died in 1790, leaving many theological works.—W. J. P.  POMPIGNAN,, a French writer, brother of the preceding, was born at Montauban in 1709. His tastes early led him to the cultivation of poetry, and the tragedy of "Dido," written in his twenty-fifth year, is a creditable imitation of the style of Racine. On his admission into the French Academy in 1760, he pronounced an oration in defence of christian morality, which drew down upon him the merciless ridicule of Voltaire, Helvetius, and other encyclopedistes. Retiring from Paris in consequence, he spent the rest of his days on his estate in seclusion and study, dying in 1784. He wrote several pieces, dramatic and moral, and translated some of the Greek and Roman classics.—W. J. P.  POMPONAZZI or POMPONACCIO, (Latin, Pomponatius), born in Mantua of noble family on 16th September, 1462; died in 1524. He was a daring and somewhat defiant philosophical speculator, accused in his own day of irreligion, and open at any rate to the impeachment of scepticism. He maintained that the immortality of the soul could not be deduced from reason or from Aristotle, but only, and sufficiently, from scripture and the church; that magic was not the work of the devil, but that all human affairs, including religion, were ruled by the stars. Though very deficient in knowledge of the classic languages, he made a great impression on his contemporaries. In person he was all but a dwarf, and of a Jewish aspect.—W. M. R.  POMPONIUS,, a Roman jurist, from whose works five hundred and eighty-five extracts are found in the Digest. Some writers have supposed there were two legal writers of this name. The last jurist whom Pomponius quotes is Julian, who flourished under Hadrian. An extract from the Enchiridion, De origine Juris, is our chief source of information regarding jurists anterior to Julian, and for the two schools founded by Capito and Labio. The principal works of Pomponius are an Enchiridion in one book, and an Enchiridion in two books; Variæ Lectiones, of which the forty-first book is quoted in the Digest; twenty books of Epistolæ; five books of Fideicomissa; libri lectionum ad Q. Mucium; libri ad Plautium; liber singularis regularum; libri ad Sabinum; libri V. Scotorum.—D. W. R.  POMPONIUS LÆTUS, (known also by the names Sabinus, Fortunatus, Infortunatus, and Numidicus; and in Italian as Pomponio Leto and Pietro di Calabria), an illegitimate offshoot of the great Neapolitan house of the Sanseverini, born in the castle of Dianio, Lucania, in 1425; died 9th June, 1498. He was a fanatic of ancient Rome, and coming early to that capital founded the Roman academy, suppressed by Pope Paul II. in 1468.—(See .) After the harassing and abortive proceedings in this affair, he continued in Rome teaching Latin and Greek literature till his death, which occurred in a hospital, his habits being those of a man to whom philosophy is the only wealth. He has been taxed with incredulity, and was certainly an ancient in heart, raising altars to Romulus, 