Evaluate the Role of Pompey as a significant military leader during this period (78-31BC)

It is debatable amongs historians as to the significance of Pompey as a military leader. While Dr B. Marshall describes Pompey as "an image cultivated to parallel Alexander the Great" having conquered half the known world, there are those who challenge this with the view that Pompey simply had the adequacy to complete the tasks that others had already begun. Plutarch and even Cicero particularly demonstrate this view. However, despite these personal views on Pompey …

…aid Sulla in 87BC to his final defeat of Mithridates in 63BC that steadily increased Pompey's power and prestige in Rome. Furthermore, his need for the ratification of his Eastern Settlement, in which he reorganises the Asian provincial system, after the Mithridatic war drives Pompey into the arms of Julius Caesar, who together with Crassus, formed the first Triumvirate, thrusting Pompey into the field of politics and ultimately resulting in the outbreak of civil war.