[228] This was in B.C. 71. In B.C. 70 Pompeius was consul for the first time with M. Licinius Crassus.
[229] Sulla had not abolished the tribunitian office, but he had deprived the tribunes of the chief part of their power. It does not seem exactly certain what Sulla did. Appianus (Civil Wars, i. 100) says 'that he weakened it very much and carried a law by which no man after being tribune could hold any other office.' Cicero (De Legibus, iii. 9) considers the extension of the tribunitian power as unavoidable, and as effected with the least mischief by being the work of Pompeius.
[230] A Cornelia Lex, passed in the time of Sulla, made the Judices in the Judicia Publica eligible only out of the body of Senators. That the Senators had acted corruptly in the administration of justice, we have the authority of Cicero in one of his Verrine orations (In Verr. A 1, 13 and 16). The measure for restoring the Equites to a share in the judicial functions was proposed by the prætor L. Aurelius Cotta, the uncle of C. Julius Cæsar, with the approbation of Pompeius and Cæsar, who were now acting in concert. The charges of corruption which Cotta made against the Senate are recorded by Cicero (In Verr. iii. 96). The proposed law (rogatio), which was carried, made the Judices eligible out of the Senators, Equites, and Tribuni Ærarii, which three classes are mentioned by Cicero (Ad Atticum, i. 16) as represented by the Judices who sat on the trial of Clodius. The purity of the administration of justice was not hereby improved. Cicero, on the occasion of the trial of Clodius, speaks of all these classes having their dishonest representatives among the judices.
[231] Compare the Life of Crassus, c. 12.
The remarks at the end of the chapter may be useful to some men who would meddle with matters political, when their only training has been in camps. Pompeius was merely a soldier, and had no capacity for civil affairs.
[232] The history of piracy in the Mediterranean goes as far back as the history of navigation. The numerous creeks and islands of this inland sea offer favourable opportunities for piratical posts, and accordingly we read of pirates as early as we read of commerce by sea. (Thucydides, i. 5.) The disturbances in the Roman State had encouraged these freebooters in their depredations. Cæsar, when a young man, fell into their hands (Life of Cæsar, c. 1); and also P. Clodius. The insecure state of Italy is shown by the fact of the pirates even landing on the Italian coast, and seizing the Roman magistrates, Sextilius and Bellienus. Cicero in his oration in favour of the Lex Manilia (c. 12, c. 17, &c.) gives some particulars of the excesses of the pirates. Antonia, whom they carried off, was the daughter of the distinguished orator, Marcus Antonius (Life of Marius, c. 44), who had been sent against the Cilician pirates B.C. 102, and had a triumph for his victory over them. If Cicero alludes (Pro Lege Manilia) to the capture of the daughter of Antonius, that probably took place before B.C. 87, for in that year Antonius was put to death. But Cicero speaks of the daughter of 'a prætor' being carried off from Misenum, and it is not improbable that he alludes to M. Antonius Creticus, prætor B.C. 75. If this explanation is correct, the Antonia was the grand-daughter of the orator Antonius.
[233] στυλίδες. The meaning of this word is uncertain. Στυλίς is a diminutive of στῦλος, and signifies a small pillar, or pole. It may be that which carried the colours. But I do not profess to have translated the word, for I do not know what is meant.
[234] From the places enumerated it appears that the pirates had carried their ravages from the coast of Asia Minor to the shores of Greece and up the Ionian Sea as far as the entrance of the Gulf of Ambracia, now the Gulf of Arta, near the entrance of which Actium was situated on the southern coast, and even to the Italian shores. The temple of Juno Lacinia was on the south-eastern coast of Italy on a promontory, now called Capo delle Colonne, from the ruins of the ancient temple. The noted temples of antiquity were filled with works of art and rich offerings, the gifts of pious devotees. Cicero (Pro Lege Manilia), c. 18) speaks of the pirates as infesting even the Via Appia.
[235] Not the mountain of that name, Kaltwasser remarks, but a town of Lycia in Asia Minor, one of the headquarters of the pirates. Strabo (p. 671) places Olympus in Cilicia. There was both a city and a mountain named Olympus there; and I have accordingly translated 'on Olympus.' (Beaufort, Karamania, p. 46.)
[236] Mithras was a Persian deity, as it appears. The name occurs in many Persian compounds as Mithridates, Ithamitres, and others. Mitra is a Sanscrit name for the Sun. (Wilson, Sanscrit Dictionary.)