September 29

How a person chooses to celebrate his or her birthday is often a matter of very personal choice. Pompey the Great chose to celebrate his 45th birthday, on the 29th in 61 b.c.e., by ending the Mithridatic Wars with a stunning victory over the nation-state of Pontus. Apparently, there were more than a few people who did not think that Pompey was all that great because on his 58th birthday in 48 b.c.e., he was assassinated when he landed in Egypt

Pompey had the same problem with women that England’s Henry VIII did – there were a lot of them. In sequential order, they were Antistia, Aemilia Scaura, Mucia Tertia, Julia (I have no idea where Julia came from, but it seems to me that her name is just a tad out of place), and Cornelia Metella.