Sextus Pompeius (Hardcover)

The son of Pompey the Great cast a long shadow. Acclaimed by the Roman populace in his lifetime, his traditional virtues and military successes put to shame his civil war rival Octavian. After his death, he was passionately and safely abused by Octavian and poets as a marginal nuisance, a pirate. The image of a second rank' figure has been propagated into modern times by Syme and Zanker, but extensive ancient evidence makes possible a very different story. Here seven new studies from an international cast reconstruct a figure whose actions and image shaped not just the civil war period but also the character of the early principate.