Cilician pirates

With the destruction of Carthage, the demise of the Seleucid Empire, and Ptolemaic Egypt on the wane, there was no strong naval power left in the Mediterranean. Rome was the only major Mediterranean power left, but, being land-based, it had a reduced navy at that time and relied on hiring ships as needed. Rome protected the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic seas, on account of their proximity, with expeditions sent against the pirate bases on the Ligurian and Illyrian coast.

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 Third Mithridatic War (73–63 BCE) against king Mithridates VI of Pontus (in modern northern Turkey) played a part in giving the pirates boldness because piracy lent itself to Mithridates’ service. This suggested that Mithridates fostered piracy as a means to weaken the Romans. Plutarch also thought that with the civil wars in Rome the Romans left the sea unguarded, which gave the pirates the confidence to lay waste islands and coastal cities in addition to attacking ships at sea. Piracy spread from its original base in Cilicia (on the southern coast of modern Turkey). The pirates also seized and ransomed some towns. Men of distinction also got involved in piracy. Plutarch claimed that pirates had more than 1,000 ships, that they captured 400 towns and plundered temples in Greece and sacred and inviolable sanctuaries, listing fourteen of them. He cited the praetors Sextilius and Bellinus and the daughter of Antonius among the important Romans who were seized for a ransom. The pirates also mocked their captives if they were Romans. Piracy spread over the whole of the Mediterranean, making it unnavigable and closed to trade. This caused scarcity of provisions.[2]

Appian attributed the escalation of piracy to Mithridates plundering the Roman province of Asia extensively in 88 BCE and the rest of the First Mithridatic War (89–85 BCE). The destitute people who lost their livelihood became pirates. At first, they scoured the sea with a few small boats. As the war dragged on they became more numerous and used larger ships. When the war ended piracy continued. They sailed in squadrons. They besieged towns or took them by storm and plundered them. They kidnapped rich people for a ransom. The ragged part of the Cilician coast became their main area for anchorage and encampment and the Crags of Cilicia (the promontory of Coracesium) became their main base. It also attracted men from Pamphylia, Pontus, Cyprus, Syria and elsewhere in the east. There were quickly tens of thousands of pirates and they dominated the whole Mediterranean. They defeated some Roman naval commanders, even off the coast of Sicily. The sea became unsafe. This disrupted trade and some lands remained untilled, leading to food shortages and hunger in Rome. Eliminating such a scattered and large force from no particular country and of an intangible and lawless nature seemed a difficult task. In Appian's opinion Lucius Licinius Murena and his successor Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus (78–74 BCE) did not accomplish anything against them.[3]

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]

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 Delos became the centre of the Mediterranean slave market; other markets included those of Rhodes and Alexandria. In its heyday, 10,000 slaves passed through Delos' markets in a single day.[5] With the plantations came a harsher system of slavery and greater demand. Western Asia was the main supply and was reduced by piracy and Roman tax farmers.

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.

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 Plutarch, the Cilician pirates were the first to celebrate the mysteries of Mithras.[14] When some of them were resettled in Apulia by Pompey, they might have brought the religion with them, thus sowing the seeds of what would in the latter part of the 1st century AD blossom into Roman Mithraism.[15]

• Thalassocracy
• Pompey's campaign against pirates

• Theodor Mommsen. The History of Rome, Book IV. Translated by William Purdie Dickson.
• Long, George (2011). Decline of the Roman Republic. British Library. ISBN 978-1-241-43737-4. OCLC 942693599.

• De Souza, Philip (1999). Piracy in the Graeco-Roman world. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-48137-6. OCLC 42004380.
• Mattingly, Harold B. (2004). "C. Verres and the Pirates". From coins to history : selected numismatic studies. Ann Harbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-11331-3. OCLC 52687928.
• Ormerod, H. A. (1922). "The Campaigns of Servilius Isauricus against the Pirates". Journal of Roman Studies. Cambridge University Press (CUP). 12: 35–56. doi:10.2307/296170. ISSN 0075-4358. JSTOR 296170. S2CID 162639885.
• Ward, Allen M. (1975). "Caesar and the Pirates". Classical Philology. University of Chicago Press. 70 (4): 267–268. doi:10.1086/366202. ISSN 0009-837X. S2CID 162212013.
• Ormerod, Henry Arderne (1997). Piracy in the ancient world : an essay in Mediterranean history. Baltimore. ISBN 0-8018-5505-5. OCLC 35637426.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

• Livius.org: Cilician Pirates
• Pirate Sayings