Nic Fields - Warlords of Republican Rome: Caesar Against Pompey

First published in Great Britain in 2008 by

PEN & SWORD MILITARY

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street

Barnsley

South Yorkshire

S70 2AS

Copyright Nic Fields, 2008

ISBN 978 1 84415 830 0

eISBN 9781783460922

The right of Nic Fields to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Without you

Who am I

But a simple, ordinary guy

Like many other small boys of my generation I soon grasped that the Romans were top nation on account of their classical education, etc. I consider myself fortunate to have had a classical education, albeit as a mature student, and in particular I owe a debt of gratitude to Jeremy Paterson for illuminating the rather tortuous political life of the late Republic. Though I still treasure the wit and eloquence of Sellar and Yeatman, I now appreciate that Caesar did more than just land at Thanet.

I offer my thanks and appreciation to Rupert Harding of Pen & Sword for his enthusiasm, encouragement and, above all, heroic patience. Likewise to all those students who had to endure my boisterous zeal for the subject during the course of my brief academic career at Edinburgh, with special thanks being offered to Brian Marshall for his professional help and continued friendship. Finally, my greatest thanks go to ma femme ( desprit ), Esther, who has been with me on this project all along the way.

During their official year, which was named after them, the two consuls were irresponsible and irremovable. Originally the consular year had begun on the Ides of March (the month named for Mars, the god of war), resulting in the consuls remaining in office for the first few months of the following year, but from 153 BC the beginning of the civil year was altered from 15 March to 1 January. Numerals in brackets after a name signify whether the man held the consulship before, while the abbreviation cos. suff . denotes consul suffectus , a consul elected to replace another who had either died in office or resigned before completing his term.

Pompey

Caesar