Plutarch, a Greek from Chaeronea in what is now central Greece, wrote Parallel Lives around the year 100: paired biographies of famous Greeks and Romans. This is the life of Gnaeus Pompeius, called Magnus, the Great. Plutarch sets him beside Agesilaus of Sparta. The story belongs to the late Roman Republic, when Rome was still run by a senate and elected officials, not a king.

Pompey wins young in Sicily and Africa, then against Sertorius in Spain. He clears pirates from the Mediterranean in a season and settles the East like a map. He holds three consulships — a consul was one of two men elected to run Rome for a year — builds a theatre, and marries from Caesar's house. The alliance cracks. After defeat at Pharsalus in Greece he flees. Off Pelusium, on Egypt's coast, a Roman soldier kills him on the sand while his wife Cornelia watches from the ship. Caesar weeps over the head. Victories end in a murder a foreign court thought would please.