Editing Quintus Sertorius (section)

=== Impact on Pompey ===
Modern accounts that do not directly deal with Sertorius largely describe him and his war in terms of its impact on the Roman state, and his influence on the career of Pompey the Great. Leach calls Sertorius one of Pompey's "most brilliant adversaries",{{sfn|Leach|1978|p=210}} and Collins refers to him as an "eccentric genius of guerrilla warfare".<ref>H.P. Collins, ''The Decline and Fall of Pompey the Great,'' p. 101</ref> Goldsworthy notes that Sertorius taught Pompey several "sharp lessons";{{sfn|Goldsworthy|2016|p=181}} Pompey himself, in his letter to the Senate preserved by Sallust, purportedly wrote (describing the events of 76&nbsp;BC) of how he weathered the first attack of the "triumphant Sertorius" and "spent the winter in camp amid the most savage of foes".{{sfn|Sall. ''Hist.''|loc=2.82.4}}

Pompey's highly irregular career was initiated by the aftermath of the civil wars of Sulla and Marius, but it was the strong military threat Sertorius posed which necessitated his extraordinary, illegal, effectively proconsular command and thereby deteriorated the Senate's control over the Roman army.{{sfn|Leach|1978|p=45}} Catherine Steel notes that Pompey's defeat of Sertorius, which solidified Pompey's extraordinary position in the state, "created its own set of problems".<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Steel |first=C. E. W. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/821697167 |title=The end of the Roman Republic, 146 to 44 BC: conquest and crisis |date=2013 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-0-7486-1945-0 |series=The Edinburgh history of ancient Rome |location=Edinburgh, Scotland |pages=104 |oclc=821697167}}</ref> Spann agrees, suggesting that Sertorius' central legacy was that his revolt "decisively transformed 'Sulla's Pupil' into Pompeius ''Magnus''", whose prominence was to play a role in influencing yet further civil wars.{{sfn|Spann|1987|p=151}}