During the party struggles in Italy, Sicily, Africa, and Spain, during the dictatorship of Sulla and its sanguinary effects, felt long afterwards in the Sertorian and Slave wars, the sufferings of Rome and her provinces were increased by a scourge of a peculiar character which had gradually attained alarming proportions.
The coasts of the western part of that district of Asia Minor known as Cilicia, where the wild mountains of the Taurus, which intersect the country, afford a safe refuge to the robber and his prey, had been from ancient times the home of piracy. The hopeless confusion of the Syrian kingdom, of which Cilicia formed a part, set order at defiance and for a long time allowed full play to the lucrative trade which flourished under the protection of the states of Rhodes, Cyprus, and Egypt, all of them at enmity with the Syrian monarchy.
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.]
In these circumstances Gabinius, one of the tribunes of the people for the year 67, a favourite of Pompey and in the pay of the latter, came forward with the momentous proposal that a general invested with extensive powers should be entrusted with the extermination of the pirates. He should be an imperator for three years with proconsular and irresponsible power extending from the Pillars of Hercules to the farthest east. He should have unlimited command throughout the sea and four hundred stadia inland in all countries, including Italy. Fifteen senatorial legati with a prætor’s privileges, and appointed by himself; two hundred ships, six thousand Attic talents and whatever land forces he might require, should be placed at the disposal of this imperator. In making this proposal no name was given, but everybody knew that it pointed to Pompey. This rogation was received with great applause. Pompey had been successful in all his preceding efforts and had just re-established the tribunician power; he was the idol of every Roman citizen, and the people reposed in him that unlimited confidence which the multitude are wont to accord to those whom they have once chosen for their favourites. Naturally the senate did not receive the appointment in the same spirit. To give one man such boundless power was the same, it was said, as to give it to him forever; it was to exchange freedom for the government of one; to turn, as the punsters said, a navarch into a monarch. Q. Catulus tried to throw the weight of his esteemed name, and Q. Hortensius that of his eloquence, into the scale against the dangerous measure. They sought to obtain the veto of the rest of the tribunes against the rogation which would place all the power of the republic at the disposal of one man, and might thus create a regular tyranny, a new Romulus; and here and there party bitterness may have vented itself in angry words, saying that the new Romulus should be treated like the old, whose mangled remains were carried away from the Field of Mars under the togas of the senators. But when the measure was put to the vote of the assembly, all opposition was futile against the unanimous and clamorous voice of the people and of the most renowned leaders of the popular party whose interests, like those of Julius Cæsar, were intimately connected with those of Pompey. The tribune Trebellius ventured to interpose his veto and maintained it until seventeen tribes voted for his removal from office when his firmness forsook him. It was in vain that Q. Catulus counselled that the deputies should be appointed by the people and not by Pompey; all resistance was useless. One hundred and twenty thousand infantry, five thousand cavalry, twenty-four deputies and five hundred ships, which exceeded the first commission, were placed at the service of Pompey, who with assumed modesty begged to be spared the difficult task. And so high were the hopes centred in him that the price of corn fell immediately on his appointment and before he had done anything.
Pompey justified the hopes of Rome. He turned to the best account the means placed at his disposal. He divided his command into thirteen areas under his deputies, and moved with his main forces from west to east. The corsairs were chased from one lurking-place to another, from retreat to retreat, and one admiral drove them into another’s net. Before forty days had elapsed the western Mediterranean was free, and the corn ships from Africa, Sardinia, and Sicily now had free course into the Roman harbours, as had not been the case for years. After a short stay at Rome, Pompey again set sail for Brundusium, and the chase commenced afresh. Treachery and submission decreased the number of the pirates who could no longer hold out and who were wisely spared by Pompey when they submitted. In less than three months he was on the western coast of wild Cilicia and arrived at the promontory of Coracesium, where a final battle put an end to the war. The remaining corsairs were there assembled and were defeated. The seas were now free, and the mountain castles opened and disgorged their plunder, their arms, their treasure, and their prisoners. Thirteen hundred ships were burned, seventy-two taken, and 306 surrendered. One hundred and twenty strongholds and towns were destroyed, ten thousand pirates were killed, and twenty thousand taken prisoners.