Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
time, having received their previous institution from them.
But besides these insolencies by sea, they were also injurious
to the Romans by land; for they would often go inland up the
roads, plundering and destroying their villages and
country-houses. And once they seized upon two Roman praetors,
Sextilius and Bellinus, in their purple-edged robes, and
carried them off together with their officers and lictors. The
daughter also of Antonius, a man that had had the honor of a
triumph, taking a journey into the country, was seized, and
redeemed upon payment of a large ransom. But it was most
abusive of all, that when any of the captives declared himself
to be a Roman and told his name, they affected to be surprised,
and feigning fear, smote their thighs and fell down at his
feet, humbly beseeching him to be gracious and forgive them.
The captive seeing them so humble and suppliant, believed them
to be in earnest; and some of them now would proceed to put
Roman shoes on his feet, and to dress him in a Roman gown, to
prevent, they said, his being mistaken another time. After all
this pageantry, when they had thus deluded and mocked him long
enough, at last putting out a ship's ladder, when they were in
the midst of the sea, they told him he was free to go, and
wished him a pleasant journey; and if he resisted, they
themselves threw him overboard, and drowned him.
This piratic power having got the dominion and control of all
the Mediterranean, there was left no place for navigation or
commerce. And this it was which most of all made the Romans,
finding themselves to be extremely straitened in their markets,
and considering that if it should continue, there would be a
dearth and famine in the land, determine at last to send out
Pompey to recover the seas from the pirates. Gabinius, one of
Pompey's friends, preferred a law, whereby there was granted to
him, not only the government of the seas as admiral, but in
direct words, sole and irresponsible sovereignty over all men.
For the decree gave him absolute power and authority in all the
seas within the pillars of Hercules, and in the adjacent
mainland for the space of four hundred furlongs from the sea.
Now there were but few regions in the Roman empire out of that
compass; and the greatest of the nations and most powerful of
the kings were included in the limit. Moreover by this decree
he had a power of selecting fifteen lieutenants out of the
senate, and of assigning to each his province in charge; then
he might take likewise out of the treasury and out of the hands
of the revenue-farmers what moneys he pleased; as also two
hundred sail of ships, with a power to press and levy what
soldiers and seamen he thought fit. When this law was read,
the common people approved of it exceedingly, but the chief men
and most important among the senators looked upon it as an
exorbitant power, even beyond the reach of envy, but well
deserving their fears. Therefore concluding with themselves
that such unlimited authority was dangerous, they agreed
unanimously to oppose the bill, and all went against it, except
Caesar, who gave his vote for the law, not to gratify Pompey,
but the people, whose favor he had courted underhand from the
beginning, and hoped to compass for himself. The rest
inveighed bitterly against Pompey, insomuch that one of the
consuls told him, that if he was ambitious of the place of
Romulus, he would scarce avoid his end, but he was in danger of
being torn in pieces by the multitude for his speech. Yet when
Catulus stood up to speak against the law, the people in
reverence to him were silent and attentive. And when, after
saying much in the most honorable terms in favor of Pompey, he
proceeded to advise the people in kindness to spare him, and
not to expose a man of his value to such a succession of
dangers and wars, "For," said he, "where could you find another
Pompey, or whom would you have in case you should chance to
lose him?" they all cried out with one voice, "Yourself." And
so Catulus, finding all his rhetoric ineffectual, desisted.
Then Roscius attempted to speak, but could obtain no hearing,
and made signs with his fingers, intimating, "Not him alone,"
but that there might be a second Pompey or colleague in
authority with him. Upon this, it is said, the multitude being
extremely incensed, made such a loud outcry, that a crow flying
over the market-place at that instant was struck, and drops
down among the crowd; whence it would appear that the cause of
birds falling down to the ground, is not any rupture or
division of the air causing a vacuum, but purely the actual
stroke of the voice, which when carried up in a great mass and
with violence, raises a sort of tempest and billow, as it were,
in the air.
The assembly broke up for that day; and when the day was come,
on which the bill was to pass by suffrage into a decree, Pompey
went privately into the country; but hearing that it was passed
and confirmed, he resumed again into the city by night, to
avoid the envy that might be occasioned by the concourse of
people that would meet and congratulate him. The next morning
he came abroad and sacrificed to the gods, and having audience
at an open assembly, so handled the matter that they enlarged
his power, giving him many things besides what was already
granted, and almost doubling the preparation appointed in the
former decree. Five hundred ships were manned for him, and an
army raised of one hundred and twenty thousand foot, and five
thousand horse. Twenty-four senators that had been generals of
armies were appointed to serve as lieutenants under him, and to
these were added two quaestors. Now it happened within this
time that the prices of provisions were much reduced, which
gave an occasion to the joyful people of saying, that the very
name of Pompey had ended the war. However, Pompey in pursuance
of his charge divided all the seas, and the whole Mediterranean
into thirteen parts, allotting a squadron to each, under the
command of his officers; and having thus dispersed his power
into all quarters, and encompassed the pirates everywhere, they
began to fall into his hands by whole shoals, which he seized
and brought into his harbors. As for those that withdrew
themselves betimes, or otherwise escaped his general chase,
they all made to Cilicia, where they hid themselves as in their
hive; against whom Pompey now proceeded in person with sixty of
his best ships, not however until he had first scoured and
cleared all the seas near Rome, the Tyrrhenian, and the
African, and all the waters of Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily;
all which he performed in the space of forty days, by his own
indefatigable industry and the zeal of his lieutenants.
Pompey met with some interruption in Rome, through the malice
and envy of Piso, the consul, who had given some check to his
proceedings, by withholding his stores and discharging his
seamen; whereupon he sent his fleet round to Brundusium,
himself going the nearest way by land through Tuscany to Rome;
which was no sooner known by the people, than they all flocked
out to meet him upon the way, as if they had not sent him out
but few days before. What chiefly excited their joy, was the
unexpectedly rapid change in the markets, which abounded now
with the greatest plenty, so that Piso was in great danger to
have been deprived of his consulship, Gabinius having a law
ready prepared for that purpose; but Pompey forbade it,
behaving himself as in that, so in all things else, with great
moderation, and when he had made sure of all that he wanted or
desired, he departed for Brundusium, whence he set sail in
pursuit of the pirates. And though he was straitened in time,
and his hasty voyage forced him to sail by several cities
without touching, yet he would not pass by the city of Athens
unsaluted; but landing there, after he had sacrificed to the
gods, and made an address to the people, as he was returning
out of the city, he read at the gates two epigrams, each in a
single line, written in his own praise; one within the gate: --
Thy humbler thoughts make thee a god the more;
the other without: --
Adieu we bid, who welcome bade before.
Now because Pompey had shown himself merciful to some of these
pirates that were yet roving in bodies about the seas, having
upon their supplication ordered a seizure of their ships and
persons only, without any further process or severity,
therefore the rest of their comrades in hopes of mercy too,
made their escape from his other commanders, and surrendered
themselves with their wives and children into his protection.
He continued to pardon all that came in, and the rather because
by them he might make discovery of those who fled from his
justice, as conscious that their crimes were beyond an act of
indemnity. The most numerous and important part of these
conveyed their families and treasures, with all their people
that were unfit for war, into castles and strong forts about
Mount Taurus; but they themselves having well manned their
galleys, embarked for Coracesium in Cilicia, where they
received Pompey and gave him battle. Here they had a final
overthrow, and retired to the land, where they were besieged.
At last, having dispatched their heralds to him with a
submission, they delivered up to his mercy themselves, their
towns, islands, and strong-holds, all which they had so
fortified that they were almost impregnable, and scarcely even
accessible.
Thus was this war ended, and the whole power of the pirates at
sea dissolved everywhere in the space of three months, wherein,
besides a great number of other vessels, he took ninety
men-of-war with brazen beaks; and likewise prisoners of war to
the number of no less than twenty thousand.
As regarded the disposal of these prisoners, he never so much
as entertained the thought of putting them to death; and yet it
might be no less dangerous on the other hand to disperse them,
as they might reunite and make head again, being numerous,
poor, and warlike. Therefore wisely weighing with himself,
that man by nature is not a wild or unsocial creature, neither
was he born so, but makes himself what he naturally is not, by
vicious habit; and that again on the other side, he is
civilized and grows gentle by a change of place, occupation,
and manner of life, as beasts themselves that are wild by
nature, become tame and tractable by housing and gentler usage,
upon this consideration he determined to translate these
pirates from sea to land, and give them a taste of an honest
and innocent course of life, by living in towns, and tilling
the ground. Some therefore were admitted into the small and
half-peopled towns of the Cilicians, who for an enlargement of
their territories, were willing to receive them. Others he
planted in the city of the Solians, which had been lately laid
waste by Tigranes, king of Armenia, and which he now restored.
But the largest number were settled in Dyme, the town of
Achaea, at that time extremely depopulated, and possessing an
abundance of good land.
However, these proceedings could not escape the envy and
censure of his enemies; and the course he took against Metellus
in Crete was disapproved of even by the chiefest of his
friends. For Metellus, a relation of Pompey's former colleague
in Spain, had been sent praetor into Crete, before this
province of the seas was assigned to Pompey. Now Crete was the
second source of pirates next to Cilicia, and Metellus having
shut up a number of them in their strong-holds there, was
engaged in reducing and extirpating them. Those that were yet
remaining and besieged sent their supplications to Pompey, and
invited him into the island as a part of his province, alleging