While the military exploits of Pompey the Great are well known to students of Roman history, the impressive deeds of his sons Sextus and Gnaeus are less well known. After the defeat and death of their father in 48 BC, the sons of Pompey carried on the struggle against Julius Caesar in Spain, Africa, and Sicily. In 45 BC the brothers were defeated at the epic battle of Munda, which Caesar rated the hardest-won victory of his career, and Gnaeus was killed. Sextus Pompey, however, escaped and went to Sicily, from where he continued the war against the Caesarian faction for a further ten years. He developed the island as his own private de facto kingdom, a secure naval base that supported his powerful fleet in far-flung operations. Allying himself with Caesar’s assassins, he fought the forces of the Second Triumvirate, not least Caesar’s adoptive son Octavian (the future Emperor Augustus) and his master admiral Agrippa, until finally caught and executed in 35 BC. Lee Fratantuono skilfully narrates the role of the sons of Pompey in these dramatic events: politics, diplomacy and epic battles by land and sea.
