Pompey

When Gnaeus Pompey was twenty-eight years old, he tried to ride into Rome on a chariot drawn by elephants. To be awarded a triumph was already such an ego boost that the Senate commissioned a slave to stand behind the victors in their (horse-drawn) chariots and whisper in their ears, “You are not a god.” For Pompey, this was the first of three triumphs he would be awarded in his lifetime. And yet horses were not enough. He capitulated only when someone realized that the elephants would not fit through the city gates.

Pompey was not the sort of man who liked to settle for less. After conquering North Africa, he went on to rid the Mediterranean of pirates, marry Julius Caesar’s daughter, and construct the first permanent theater at Rome. Maybe this is why he earned the title “Great.” For the Romans, “Pompey the Great” had the same ring to it that “Vlad the Impaler” would later have for Romanians. One can imagine the sigh of satisfaction with which he might react every time he was summoned by name, and the terror that it might invoke among his enemies.

Pompey’s busts demonstrate his satisfaction with himself. Small, generous eyes gaze out from a round, fleshy face, the forehead lightly wrinkled, his hair tossed up playfully at the part. Thin lips, a bulbous nose, jowls, and an ample chin complete the image. For all his achievements, he looks the part of an absentminded college professor. Yet this was a man who nearly saved Rome from destroying herself. Caesar, instead, destroyed him. He severed this head, and had it buried in Egypt, thousands of miles from home.