The Historians' History of the World 05

We know how in the year 228 Rome had punished the Illyrian pirates, but it was only about the year 103 that Marcus Antonius was sent against those of Cilicia and after some time celebrated a hard-earned triumph. The torpor of the Roman government and the civil disturbances were more inimical to the safety of the seas than to that of the land; and in the war against Mithridates, in which civil disturbances played such a disastrous part, the ships of the Cilicians offered the same refuge to the vanquished—whether he were of Pontus, Greece, or Rome, whether Mithridates or Sulla had made him homeless—as they afforded to escaped convicts, runaway slaves, and the outcasts of every nation and every country. Their pirate sails were soon to be found all over the Mediterranean Sea. After the collapse of the Grecian states and the decay of the Roman sea power there was soon no safety for any merchant ship, or coast district.

When the captured men could not ransom themselves by large sums of money, they were taken to the great slave markets of which the island of Delos was the chief depot, and in the secure and unassailable mountain castles of Cilicia the corsairs deposited the money and other property which their boats and fleets had seized throughout the whole district of the Mediterranean.

The excellent organisation of this roving power added tenfold to its danger. Any one who belonged to the great association could claim assistance from any ship that carried the pirate flag. There was no fear of treachery; a common interest, common foes, a similar life had created a kind of national cohesion and national feeling among these freebooters of the sea.

The repeated efforts of the Romans to stem the danger had been without avail. L. Murena (84-81) accomplished nothing, neither was anything of a decisive nature effected by P. Servilius Vatia (78-75), although he conducted the war with much will and energy. He did his best; and by his capture of the city of Isaura, in Taurus, he won for himself the surname of Isauricus and a triumph at which he was able to produce rich booty and, to the especial delight of the people, some pirate captains as prisoners. Cilicia was formed into a Roman province, but this left the evil practically untouched. The selection in the year 74 of Marcus Antonius, a son of the Marcus Antonius mentioned above, as proprætor against the Cilician corsairs, with considerable means at his disposal, was also a failure, for the chiefs of the Cretan pirate horde annihilated the greater portion of his fleet. Emboldened by success, the corsairs of the Syrian coasts ventured as far as the Pillars of Hercules; they mocked at the power and sapped the vitality of the Roman state. Notable men like P. Clodius and Julius Cæsar fell into their hands. Ambassadors of foreign powers on their way to Rome were captured, and Roman ambassadors and curule magistrates had to be ransomed. Twelve axes, Cicero moaned, fell into the hands of the pirates, who with these insignia in their possession mocked at the supremacy of Rome. Italian cities such as Caieta, and Misenum, to say nothing of Greek ones like Cnidus, Colophon, and Samos were plundered, and the pirate squadron—the nimble little myoparones

—even appeared at Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber. Trade and the free supply of provisions were everywhere seriously obstructed and this was particularly felt at Rome; the high price of corn, and the emptiness of the treasury, whose source of replenishment was cut off, pressed heavily on the nation and at last became unendurable.

The half-measures adopted so far having accomplished nothing, it was evident that the pirates must either be destroyed by one great blow or left to do as they pleased.

[67 B.C.]