Cilician pirates
Cilician pirates dominated the
Rise of piracy
With the destruction of
As a result, the pirates became consolidated and organized. The smaller communities of the Greek and African waters were left to make their own arrangements. Communities unable to fend off the pirate incursions were forced to come to an understanding with the pirates, and thus became havens.
Crete was still independent. Civil wars had devastated the land, and much of the population turned to piracy. Crete became a major haven for pirates, with its strategic position in the midst of the Mediterranean and because it did not fall under the control of any of the Mediterranean empires.
Cilicia was the other major pirate refuge. Like Crete, Cilicia enjoyed excellent natural harbours which geography rendered easily defensible. The Seleucids, who ruled over most of Cilicia, were too weak to suppress them, and Diodotus Tryphon, king of the Seleucid Empire from 142–138 BCE, actually supported them, in order to strengthen his position.
Around 140 BCE, Rome sent Scipio Aemilianus to assess the situation. He reported that the governments of the region were too weak or unwilling to settle the issue. Rome at this time was unwilling to spend the effort needed to reduce the Cilician pirates, perhaps because of the benefits piracy afforded the Romans (the pirates supplied the Romans with cheap slaves – captured during their raids).
Consequently, the pirates remained the only considerable naval power in the Eastern Mediterranean. They eventually had bases all throughout the Mediterranean.
The piracy problem in the Mediterranean increased over the decades: A large network of pirates coordinated operations over wide areas, with large fleets. According to Cassius Dio, many years of war contributed to this. Many war fugitives joined them. Pirates were more difficult to catch or break up than bandits. The pirates pillaged coastal fields and towns. Rome was affected through shortages of imports and the supply of grains, but the Romans did not pay proper attention to the problem. They sent out fleets when ‘they were stirred by individual reports’ and these did not achieve anything. Cassius Dio wrote that these operations caused greater distress for Rome's allies. It was thought that a war against the pirates would be big and expensive and that it was impossible to attack all the pirates at once or to drive them back everywhere. As not much was done against them, some towns were turned into pirate winter quarters and raids further inland were carried out. Many pirates settled on land in various places and relied on an informal network of mutual assistance. Towns in Italy were also attacked, including Ostia, the port of Rome: ships were burnt and there was pillaging. The pirates seized important Romans and demanded large ransoms.[1]
Plutarch also linked the worsening of the piracy problem to war and did so in more specific terms. The
Appian attributed the escalation of piracy to Mithridates plundering the Roman province of Asia extensively in 88 BCE and the rest of the
Cilicia had been a haven for pirates for a long time. It was divided into two parts, Cilicia Trachaea (rugged Cilicia), a mountainous area in the west, and Cilicia Pedias (flat Cilicia) in the east by the Limonlu River. The first Roman campaign against the pirates was led by Marcus Antonius in 102 BCE. Parts of Cilicia Pedias became Roman territory. Only a small part of that area became a Roman province. Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus was given the command of fighting piracy in Cilicia in 78–74 BCE. He won several naval victories off Cilicia and occupied the coasts of nearby Lycia and Pamphylia. He received his agnomen of Isaurus because he defeated the Isauri who lived in the core of the Taurus Mountains, which bordered on Cilicia. He incorporated Isauria into the province of Cilicia Pedias. However, much of Cilicia Pedias belonged to the kingdom of Armenia. Cilicia Trachea was still under the control of the pirates.[4][full citation needed]
Slave trade
One of the pirates' main sources of income was slavery. Rome's economy had become dependent on slaves as Roman landowners held large plantations worked by them. Sicily was particularly notorious for its large Roman estates worked by slaves from all over the Mediterranean. When the Republic was not at war, it needed an alternative supply and so it turned to the pirates, who were Rome's most consistent supplier. That had the additional effect of powerful interest groups in Rome (mainly the business class) who lobbied for inactivity.[5]
The island of
Rome and the pirates
By the 1st century BCE, what began as a nuisance became a plague on the Mediterranean commerce. The Cilician pirates roamed across the entire Mediterranean, and began to attack the towns of Italy itself. In fact, even Ostia was plundered. There were three campaigns, first by Marcus Antonius Creticus in 102 BCE, and second by Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus in 78–74 BCE. The pirates regrouped a few years after, and a third campaign by Pompey 66 BCE permanently removed the Cilician pirates from the Mediterranean.
Marcus Antonius' 102 BCE campaign
Eventually, Rome took action. In 102 BCE, the Romans sent Marcus Antonius the Orator to Cilicia with an army and a fleet. The pirates were no match for this onslaught so they fled, Antonius proclaimed victory, and the Senate awarded him a triumph. But the pirates merely regrouped on Crete, and soon returned to their old bases in Cilicia and piracy resumed. For over two decades Rome, occupied with other threats, ignored the problem again.
Publius Servilius' 78–74 BCE campaign
In 79 BCE,
Pompey's 66 BCE campaign
In 68 BCE, the pirates launched a raid at Ostia, barely fifteen miles from Rome, by sailing into the harbour and burning the consular war fleet. The port went up in flames and the grip of famine tightened around Rome. Starving citizens took to the Forum, demanding action.[6]
Finally, after heated debate, under the lex Gabinia Pompey was granted extraordinary powers to eliminate the Cilician pirates. He organized his efforts in a two-stage campaign, first clearing the western Mediterranean, and second overwhelming the pirates trapped in the eastern Mediterranean. The western campaign lasted 40 days. The eastern campaign lasted 49 days. In total, Pompey's campaign removed the Cilician pirates, who had held a stranglehold on Mediterranean commerce and threatened Rome with famine, in a mere 89 days in the summer of 66 BCE.
Western campaign
Pompey divided the
By keeping vigilance over all the sea at the same time (and at great cost), there was nowhere to run or hide. Those Cilician pirates that did escape fled to the eastern Mediterranean. Pompey completed this first part of his campaign in 40 days.
Eastern campaign
Pompey then turned to the eastern Mediterranean. He gave mild terms to those pirates who surrendered to him personally, as opposed to his other commanders. Some pirates surrendered their ships, their families and themselves up to Pompey. From these, he learned about where others were hiding.
Many pirates retreated to their strongholds of Asia Minor, where they gathered and waited for Pompey to attack them. At Coracesium Pompey won a decisive victory and blockaded the town. The Cilician pirates surrendered all their harbours and fortified islands.
Peaceful resettlement
The Romans took the wealth the pirates had collected, and released many of their prisoners, (prisoners of worth whom the pirates intended to ransom), but other prisoners were still sold into slavery. Strabo writes that Pompey destroyed 1,300 pirate vessels of all sizes.
Pompey spared the lives of numerous Cilician pirates who had been taken prisoner, realizing that many had been driven to such recourse by desperation. Those who surrendered were settled in various parts of the southern coast of Asia Minor, where the population was sparse. Many were settled at
Notable encounters
Quintus Sertorius
When
Julius Caesar
When Sulla died in 78 BC, Julius Caesar returned to Rome as a lawyer, prosecuted Sulla's supporters, and headed to the Greek city of Rhodes to study oratory. Pirates seized his vessel in 75 BC, kidnapped Caesar (then aged 25), and held him for ransom. Caesar felt insulted at the twenty talents (480,000 sesterces) ransom and insisted that the pirates raise the demand to fifty talents (1,200,000 sesterces) more suitable for his status; his retinue quickly raised the money in the local cities, before returning to the pirate stronghold.
Caesar had decided that he would crucify the pirates after he was free. After the money was paid and he was released he assembled a small army and a fleet, after which he captured the pirates and crucified them as he had promised while in captivity – a promise that the pirates had taken as a joke. As a form of leniency, he first had their throats cut.[8]
Spartacus
During the slave rebellion known as the Third Servile War, Spartacus was said to have brokered a deal with the Cilician pirates, hoping to smuggle a force of rebels across to Sicily. Sometime in 71 BC, the pirates deserted Spartacus and he had to give up his plans to cross over to Sicily.
Publius Clodius
In 67 BC, the Roman governor of Cilicia, Quintus Marcius Rex, sent his brother-in-law, Publius Clodius Pulcher, with a war fleet to patrol the coastline of his province. While on this patrol Clodius was seized by the pirates he had been sent to hunt down. Hoping to win his release, Clodius promised his captors a substantial reward, and they solicited a ransom from Ptolemy of Cyprus, an ally of the Romans. The amount offered was so paltry (two talents) that it was clear that Clodius had greatly overestimated his worth, the amused pirates released him anyway.[9][10][11][12]
Pirate culture
Plutarch recounts a particular custom of the Cilician pirates. When one of their prisoners called out that he was Roman, the pirates would pretend to be scared and beg for mercy. If the prisoner took the pirates' mockery in earnest, they would dress him in Greek athletic shoes and a toga so that they might not repeat the mistake. After they were satisfied mocking him, they would lower a ladder into the sea and, wishing him a fortuitous journey, invite him to step off. If the man would not go of his own accord, they would push him overboard.[13]
According to
See also
- Thalassocracy
- Pompey's campaign against pirates
References
- ^ Cassius Dio. Roman History. 36.20-23.1-4.
- ^ Plutarch. Life of Pompey. Parallel Lives. 24–25.1.
- ^ Appian. The Mithridatic War. 91–93.
- ^ Broughton, T.R.S. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic. Vol. II. pp. 87–89.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-349-11563-4.
- ISBN 978-0-349-11563-4.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, pp 58-61.
- OCLC 48761371.
- ^ Cassius Dio, xxxvi. 17.
- ^ Appian, Bellum Civile, ii. 23.
- ^ Broughton, Magistrates of the Roman Republic, vol. II, p. 148.
- ISBN 978-0-349-11563-4.
- ^ Plutarch, Vita Pompeii 24.7-8.
- ^ Plutarch, Vita Pompeii 24.5.
- ^ (See R. Turcan, The Cults of the Roman Empire, Blackwell, 1996; pp. 201–203)
Bibliography
- Theodor Mommsen. The History of Rome, Book IV. Translated by William Purdie Dickson.
- Long, George (2011). Decline of the Roman Republic. British Library. OCLC 942693599.
Further reading
- De Souza, Philip (1999). Piracy in the Graeco-Roman world. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. OCLC 42004380.
- Mattingly, Harold B. (2004). "C. Verres and the Pirates". From coins to history : selected numismatic studies. Ann Harbor: University of Michigan Press. OCLC 52687928.
- Ormerod, H. A. (1922). "The Campaigns of Servilius Isauricus against the Pirates". Journal of Roman Studies. 12. Cambridge University Press (CUP): 35–56. S2CID 162639885.
- Ward, Allen M. (1975). "Caesar and the Pirates". Classical Philology. 70 (4). University of Chicago Press: 267–268. S2CID 162212013.
- Ormerod, Henry Arderne (1997). Piracy in the ancient world : an essay in Mediterranean history. Baltimore. )