What Were the Dates and Occasions of Pompey the Great's Triumphs?

Question: What Were the Dates and Occasions of Pompey the Great's Triumphs?

Pompey was known as Pompey the Great after he removed the threat of an annoying Roman gadfly, the so-called friend of Rome, Mithradates of Pontus, in Asia Minor. His victories in the East were the occasion of his third and last Roman triumph. There were two others earlier. That a triple triumph was a momentous feat is indicated by the fact that various ancient Latin and Greek authors (including Cicero, Plutarch, Lucan, Pliny, Velleius Paterculus, and Petronius) refer to the triple triumphs.

Answer: The occasion of Pompey's first triumph was a victory over King Hiarbas in Numidia in 79 B.C.

Mary Beard's The Roman Triumph says that the date of the triumph is unknown. Pompey is said to have been somewhere between 24 and 26 years old and was not yet in the senate.

Pompey's second triumph was awarded him for his victory in Spain in 71 B.C.

Pompey's third triumph was the one for his eastern victories and was awarded in 61 B.C. It is the best documented of all Roman triumphs, although details of the event seem improbable or even incredible. It was a lavish two-day affair that included, on the parade, a statue of the defeated Mithradates 8-cubits tall and made of solid gold, according to Appian.

As Monroe E. Deutsch says in "Pompey's Three Triumphs" this series of triumphs was impressive not just for its number but for the fact that each victory was on a different continent and by winning in each division of the known world, Pompey had, in a sense, conquered the world.

An additional anecdote from Deutsch, about the importance to Pompey of the triple triumph is that he had representations of the trophies from the 3 triumphs inscribed on his ring. It was this ring that convinced those in Rome that Pompey had indeed been murdered in Egypt.

Source:
"Pompey's Three Triumphs," by Monroe E. Deutsch. Classical Philology, Vol. 19, No. 3. (Jul., 1924), pp. 277-279.