War. Pompey himself came into great public prominence during his 20s under the rule of Sulla. He was neither an "unconditional adherent" nor an "open opponent" of Sulla, who "half in recognition, half in irony" first called Pompey 'the Great'. Sound in body and mind, a good athlete, a skilled rider and fencer, the youthful Pompey had won extraordinary military honors and public acclaim. "Unhappily, his mental endowments by no means corresponded with these unprecedented successes. He was neither a bad nor an incapable man, but a man thoroughly ordinary." An "excellent soldier", he was "without trace of any higher gifts." As commander Pompey was cautious and delivered "the decisive blow only when he had established an immense superiority". "His integrity was of a rich man... too rich to incur special risks, or draw down on himself conspicuous disgrace". His reputation for "integrity and disinterestness" came less from his virtue than from a senate rife with vice. Yet as a landowner he was fair-minded; he did not join "revolting schemes in which the grandess of that age" expanded their domains by infringing on their "humbler neighbors". A good man, "he displayed attachment to his wife and children." He was "the first to depart from the barbarous custom of putting to death the captive kings" of countries fighting Rome. "His 'honest countenance' became almost proverbial." Yet at Sulla's command Pompey quit his beloved wife and then later ordered the execution of soldiers loyal to him, all due to Sulla and politics. He was not cruel, but he was cold. A shy man, "he spoke in public not without embarrassment; and generally was angular, stiff, and awkward in intercourse." "For nothing was he less qualified than for a statesman." His aims uncertain, unable to decide on means, short sighted, "he was wont to conceal his irresolution and indecision under a cloak of solemn silence." He often would "deceive himself that he was deceiving others." Like Marius, "Pompeius was in every respect incapable of leading and keeping together a [political] party." His exalted social position also remained fundamentally ambivalent. Allied to the aristocracy by his consular ancestry and through Sulla, he disliked Sulla personally and worked against the Sullan constitution, and his family gens was of recent vintage and not fully accepted by the nobility. Pompey maintained links to the Populares and joined Caesar in the triumvirate. Yet, to the contrary, he was