Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
For E. Badian the story of Pompeius Strabo's desire for a second consulship in 88, though implausible, was too well documented to require citation of sources. In fact it is not well documented and seems to depend solely on one disputed passage: Veil. Pat. 2.21.2. Others, far less cautious than Badian, have not scrupled, however, to accept it as uncontested fact and on it to build unlikely hypotheses, despite the long scholarly controversy as to whether it refers to 88 or 86. It is my belief that it can be shown that the passage almost unquestionably refers to the ambitions Pompeius Strabo entertained in 87 with regard to the consulship of 86.
1 Foreign Clientelae (Oxford, 1958), p. 230.Google Scholar
2 Cf. e.g. Mitchell, T. F., ‘The Volte Face of C. Sulpicius Rufus in 88 B.C.’, CP 70 (1975), 202Google Scholar; Katz, B. R., ‘The Siege of Rome in 87 B.C.’, CP 71 (1976), 329, n.6.Google Scholar
3 Bibliography in Katz, , op. cit.Google Scholar
4 Cf. Willems, P., Le Droit public romain (Louvain, 1883), p.256.Google Scholar
5 Pompée le Grand (Brussels, 1954), p.45.Google Scholar
6 Cf. Badian, E.‘The date of Pompey's first triumph’, Hermes 83 (1955), 107.Google Scholar