Pompeius Strabo's Second Consulship

Abstract

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.