What was the reason behind Pomepeys decision to escape to Egypt after the battle of Pharsalus?
Whenever I read about the civil war, the moment the battle ends and Pompey escapes it just states he ran to Egypt and then the Ptolemys decapitated him! But why did he decide to go there in the first place? Couldn't he have gone to one of his Greek clients for refuge, and tried to recruit more troops? Or even run back to Spain or Italy?
Did he have prior relationship with the Ptolemys I simply haven’t read about? Did he expect to be supplied with new forces there - while Egypt was having its own Civil war? The irony is if he had no intentions to continue the fight, he could've just surrendered to Caesar, and be almost certain his life would be spared and he'd be allowed to return to Rome! But it is very unlike him, and doesn’t fit the description of his personality at all!
It seems he was expecting to gain some strategic advantage from this move, but the fact he almost instantly gets killed, makes me wonder what was his reasoning’s to make that gamble?
Thank you for reading and for your reply :)
This old thread should more or less answer your question. The short answer is that Egypt was a client kingdom of Pompey's (or at least Pompey considered it to be one--Gabinius had restored Ptolemy XII to the throne for Pompey) and Pompey didn't intend to stay there for long. Pompey attempted at first to stop at Syria, but scrapped that plan when he heard that Antioch had taken up arms and was threatening to kill any Pompeian that set foot on their shores--likewise, Rhodes closed its harbor to Lentulus, so the situation was probably much the same throughout the east, as cities closed off their harbors for fear of Caesarian reprisals or destruction in the siege that would follow should the Pompeians decide to stay. The idea was almost certainly to get hold of some Egyptian funding, as Egypt was vastly wealthier even than Syria, and then shove off either to Africa or Iberia