Cilician pirates
The so-called Cilician pirates were a sea power operating from bases all over the Mediterranean . Until their submission by Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus in 67 BC. BC mainly dominated the eastern Mediterranean and during this time severely disrupted trade in the Mediterranean area.
Origins
Due to the decline of the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BC A power vacuum arose in the eastern Mediterranean through which a well-organized piracy operating from ports in Cilicia could establish itself. After the Peace of Apamea in 188 BC BC Cilicia was formally still part of the realm of the defeated Antiochus III. The previously little influence of the Seleucid Empire in the region had now completely disappeared due to the contractual conditions (only 10 or 12 warships, and no operations west of the Kalykadnos ), which is why the pirate traditions there, which had never been completely forgotten, were soon revived. This piracy was during the wars of Mithridates VI. strengthened by Pontos . According to Appian , it was Mithridates himself who raised the pirate character to a new level and was so closely allied with the pirates that once he was shipwrecked, he did not hesitate to board a pirate ship and be driven home.
The most important fortress of the pirates was Korakesion in Pamphylia , today's Alanya . Here the Seleucid pretender Diodotus had Tryphon 138 BC. His sea power stationed. The mercenaries involved in the fighting at that time were, according to the ancient historian Strabo, the core of the pirate disorder that followed, which spread quickly, as the slave trade in particular was very lucrative.
“Merchant, ship over and unload, everything is sold” was the saying in Delos at the time. Delos was not only the central cult place of Apollon and Artemis , but also an Emporion , a 167 BC. A trading center privileged by the resolution of the Roman Senate and until its destruction by Mithridates in 88 BC. The center of the slave trade for the entire Mediterranean area. The pirates had no problems to sell their "goods" there. It was said that up to 10,000 slaves were "handled" there in one day.
The rulers of Syria could not prevent piracy, Cyprus and Egypt promoted it because it was harmful to Syria, and the sea power Rhodes was also unwilling to do anything. The mischief was initially useful for Rome, as the need for slaves was very great among the Romans, who became immensely rich after the destruction of Corinth and Carthage . So it came about that the Cilician pirates soon dominated the slave trade and thus became the main supplier of goods of central importance to the Roman economy.
There seems to have been another reason for Roman indifference: the kidnapping and enslavement of the victims was carried out on a large scale by the tax hunters' societies, also in the name of Rome . It went so far that King Nicomedes III. of Bithynia 104 BC BC could answer a request from auxiliary troops that he had none, because the Publicani had stolen all the strong men.
In the cities of Olympos , Korykos , Phaselis , Attaleia and Side , the pirates could call at the port and go about their business openly, which included selling prisoners of sea raids as slaves without making a secret of the fact that freeborns were illegally sold here . These cities were partly and temporarily under pirate rule, so Olympos, Korykos and Phaselis were under the rule of a pirate named Zeniketes , who had founded a small pirate empire there, but it was short-lived. When the Roman troops of Publius Servilius Vatia in 77 BC BC stormed his fortress on Mount Olympus, he set himself and his entire household on fire. In this respect, the designation of pirates as "Cilician" is well established, but actually misleading, since the centers of their activity were actually partly in Lycia such as the Zeniketes empire, and partly in Pamphylia.
In addition, the pirates had numerous fortified hiding spots on the Cilician coast, they ruled the Cretan ports and had bases (Plutarch mentions the number 400) in the entire Mediterranean area as far as the Balearic Islands and the Strait of Gibraltar. According to Appian, the pirates were mixed by origin: some Cilikians, some Syrians, Cypriots , Pamphylians and people from Pontos . Mostly they were mercenaries from the Mithridatic wars who, after the defeat of Mithridates, wanted to continue their craft of murder on their own.
Pirate culture
At the height of their power, the Cilician pirates were no longer a simple band of robbers: According to Plutarch , they had more than 1000 ships, conquered 400 cities, were well organized and not only that: they were particularly resented by their outrageous display of splendor. Far from appearing as ragged cutthroats, piracy was practiced on ships with gold-plated sails, purple sunroofs on the upper deck and silver-plated oars .
Not only did they live a cultivated life, they also had a rough sense of humor. If a prisoner claimed to be a Roman, the pirates acted very frightened, as if an unforgivable mistake had occurred, and dressed the prisoner in Roman style with boots and toga so that he was immediately recognized as a Roman. Then when they had had fun they lowered a ladder to the water and politely asked their prisoner to leave the ship and go on his way, saying it was free. If he didn't want to do this in the middle of the sea, they helped.
As a peculiarity of the pirates, Plutarch notes that they were the first known worshipers of Mithras . They are said to have made strange sacrifices in Olympos , a coastal town on the Bay of Pamphylia, whether to Mithras or another deity, is not recorded. It is also noteworthy that the Chimaira is located very close by , an earth fire and cult site that already existed at that time , where at the time of the Zeniketes flames that were visible from afar broke out of the mountain.
As for gods other than Mithras, the pirates showed neither shyness nor piety, because they plundered the Greek temples and sanctuaries without inhibition: Klaros , Didyma , Samothrace , the temple of Gaia in Hermione , the temple of Asclepios in Epidaurus , the temple of Poseidon at the isthmus of Corinth , in Tainaron and Kalaureia , the temples of Apollo in Actium and Leukas and those of Hera in Samos , Argos and Lakinion . Even if you take into account the fact that temples were then what banks are today, the pirates can still be assumed to have a pronounced audacity.
Rome's first actions
The first military actions of Rome against the pirates remained unsuccessful or failed: Marcus Antonius Orator fought the pirates when he 102 BC. Chr. Praetor in Cilicia was what you even him a triumphal granted, and Mark Antony Creticus , his son and father of the famous Mark Antony , a so-called received imperium infinitum combating piracy on Crete when he v 74th Was praetor. The actions of Lucius Licinius Murena also had no notable success.
Murena should have attacked, presumably following Sulla's long-standing plan , both from land along the northern flank of the Taurus and from sea along the south coast of Asia Minor. Although he occupied the Kibyratis , his failures in the dispute with Mithridates made a consequent action against the pirates impossible and led in 81 BC. To his recall.
The roles of Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella , from 80 BC. BC Proconsul in Cilicia, and his Proquaestor Gaius Verres were even more inglorious: They plundered the population and caused devastation and unrest in the region, at least that is how Cicero sees it . Against Dolabella after his return in 79 BC. A repetition proceedings opened for blackmail , in which he was heavily incriminated by Verres. Dolabella was convicted and Verres was acquitted based on his testimony.
According to Dolabella, Publius Servilius Vatia was in the years 78 to 74 BC. BC Proconsul of Cilicia and fought the pirates. He was Florus According to the first Roman who crossed the Taurus. After defeating the Isaurians , he was given the honorary name Isauricus . As their conqueror he could 74 BC. Celebrate a triumph. But even this military success had no lasting effect. The success in Cilicia itself was considerable, after Ammianus Marcellinus Servilius Vatia would have made the region tributary, but the Romans would have failed to prevent the pirates from fleeing across the sea. Therefore, they were able to look for new pirate nests very quickly, especially on Crete, where they quickly displaced the pirate creatures that were already native there.
Caesar's captivity
According to a famous anecdote portrayed by Velleius Paterculus , Suetonius, and most colorfully by Plutarch, a group of pirates themselves became objects of the rough humor of the young Gaius Julius Caesar . This was therefore on the way to an educational trip to Rhodes 75/74 BC. Fell into the hands of pirates near the island of Pharmakussa near Miletus . The kidnappers initially demanded a ransom of 20 talents , which Caesar did not find appropriate to the importance of his person; he offered to pay 50 talents instead. To raise this sum he sent most of his companions and only kept his personal physician and two servants with him. During the several weeks of waiting for the ransom, Caesar lived with the pirates at ease and seemed to be master rather than a prisoner. He played sports, ordered his kidnappers to rest when he wanted to sleep, and wrote poems and speeches that he read aloud. If the applause wasn't enough for him, he called the pirates uneducated barbarians and threatened to let them down, which they put up with because they thought he was a young, harmless fool with a loose mouth.
After 38 days the men sent by Caesar returned with the ransom demanded, for which cities in Asia Minor had paid. Since Caesar, who was also an influential Roman nobleman as a young man, had been taken prisoner largely due to the inadequate coastal surveillance by these cities, the latter had to comply with his demand for payment for his ransom. No sooner was he free than he quickly fitted out a small fleet in the port of Miletus and pursued his kidnappers. After a short battle he was able to sink many of their ships, some to conquer them; however, some pirate ships managed to escape. In this action, however, Caesar acted as an unauthorized private individual.
Now Caesar brought the seized pirates to Pergamon , placed them there under guard and went personally to Bithynia to see the Propraetor Marcus Iuncus , who administered the province of Asia with a proconsular empire. Iuncus was responsible for punishing those arrested, but refused to consent to the execution of the pirates expected by Caesar. According to Plutarch, he was eager for the pirates' considerable booty, but according to Velleius, he hoped for a high profit from the sale of the prisoners as slaves. However, Caesar quickly returned to Pergamon back before the command of the propraetor had been sent there, and let all the pirates on your own crucified . Suetonius reports that Caesar saved the condemned from a painful death by having their throats cut before they were crucified. According to a surviving fragment of the now-lost writings of the Roman antiquarian Fenestella , the execution of the captured pirates was not carried out by crucifixion, but by beheading.
War of Pompey
After all, the pirates, whose power still persisted in spite of everything, not only disrupted Rome's grain supply, but also demonstrated by robbery on the coasts of Italy, during which they occasionally kidnapped noble Roman women, including the daughter of a triumphant, that they were masters of the Sea and had no fear of the Roman naval power. In the end they went so far as to steal two Roman praetors, Sextilius and Bellinus , along with lictors and official insignia.
Because of such unbearable circumstances, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus received 67 BC. Because of the Lex Gabinia, an extraordinary empire endowed with extensive powers . The entire Mediterranean Sea and its coastal areas about 75 km inland were under his authority. Large areas that were by no means part of the Roman Empire at the time belonged to this dominion. In addition, he received unlimited financial resources, the authority to carry out levies and a fleet of initially 200 and later 500 ships.
Within six months Pompey succeeded with this force to defeat the pirates and restore the safety of the sea routes in the Mediterranean. He divided the entire Mediterranean area among the legates from the senatorial class who were subordinate to him as follows:
- Spain and the Strait of Gibraltar : Tiberius Claudius Nero and Aulus Manlius Torquatus
- Gaul and Liguria : Marcus Pomponius
- North Africa, Sardinia, Corsica and the islands: Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus and Publius Atilius
- Italy: Lucius Gellius Publicola and Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus
- Sicily and Adriatic to Acarnania : Plotius Varus and Marcus Terentius Varro
- Peloponnese , Attica , Evia , Thessaly , Macedonia and Boeotia : Lucius Cornelius Sisenna
- Greek islands, Aegean and Hellespont : Lucius Lollius
- Bithynia , Thrace , Propontis and Bosporus : Marcus Pupius Piso Frugi Calpurnianus
- Lycia , Pamphylia , Cyprus and Phenicia : Quintus Caecilius Metellus Nepos
As a result of this systematic approach, the pirates were no longer able to evade and were ultimately forced into a defensive position.
The decisive battle was fought in front of Korakesion, in which Pompey's fleet defeated the pirate fleet. Pompey was prepared for a subsequent siege of the fortress, but this turned out to be unnecessary as the defenders surrendered. That ended the war against the pirates.
consequences
According to Appian, Pompey captured 71 ships by boarding and 306 by surrender, including 90 warships with bronze rams, according to Plutarch. 120 pirate bases and 20,000 pirates surrendered. 10,000 had died in the war, which means that the pirate force previously numbered at least 30,000 men. In addition, Pompey was able to free numerous prisoners who , when they returned home, often found their own cenotaph because they had been thought dead.
Unlike Caesar, Pompey did not crucify the vanquished, but gave them life and made them allies, which increased the pirates' willingness to surrender and help track down the last hiding places. Pompey settled the conquered partly in Cilicia and there especially in Soloi , which was destroyed by Tigranes II , as well as in Mallos , Adana , and Epiphaneia , but he brought most of them to Dyme in Achaia and made them farmers there.
Pompey himself took numerous former pirates into his retinue, some of whom fought in the great naval battles of the civil war on the side of Sextus Pompeius and Mark Antony, some of which are known by name, such as Menodorus and Tarkondimotos .
David Ulansey names the spread of the Mithras cult in the Roman Empire as an important long-term consequence of this relatively mild treatment of the defeated enemy. As mentioned above, after Plutarch, the pirates were the first followers of Mithras. Ulansey advocates the theory that the roots of the Mithras cult lay in Cilicia, and makes Tarsus and the stoic philosophers who worked there as the founders of the cult. After the victory of Pompey, former pirates served in the Roman army and so the cult spread.
reception
Cilician pirates often played a role in the ancient novel . They mostly had the function of kidnapping the female protagonist to a distant place, where she could escape danger and withstand temptation, while the male protagonist searched the globe for her and experienced interesting adventures himself. The best known example is the novel Chaireas and Kallirrhoe of Chariton by Aphrodisias .
In modern popular culture, the Cilician pirates, unlike the Caribbean pirates, made only a small impression: In Stanley Kubrick's monumental film Spartacus from 1960, based on the novel by Howard Fast of the same name , they have a brief appearance that does not quite correspond to the traditional facts. In the film, they are supposed to bring the rebellious slaves to their home countries, but are bribed by the Roman general Marcus Licinius Crassus and therefore abandon the slaves.
According to Plutarch, Spartacus , the leader of the slave rebellion , had actually tried to do business with the Cilician pirates. However, they were not supposed to bring the rebels home, but rather transfer 2,000 of his fighters to Sicily, where he wanted to spark a new uprising among the local slaves and thus increase the opponents and thus the problems of the Romans. The Cilikians accepted his gifts, but failed to perform as promised.
literature
- José Miguel Alonso-Núñez: Piracy. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 11, Metzler, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-476-01481-9 , column 331 f.
- Henry A. Ormerod: Piracy in the Ancient World. An essay in Mediterranean history. University Press, Liverpool 1924. New edition: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-8018-5505-5 .
- Henry A. Ormerod: The Campaigns of Servilius Isauricus against the Pirates. In: The Journal of Roman Studies , Vol. 12 (1922), pp. 35-56.
- Hartel Pohl: Roman politics and piracy in the eastern Mediterranean from the 3rd to the 1st century BC Chr. De Gruyter, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-11-013890-5 .
- Philip de Souza: Piracy in the Graeco-Roman World. Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Web links
- Cilician pirates on livius.org (English)
- Pompey biography of Plutarch on Lacus Curtius
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ormerod: The Campaigns of Servilius Isauricus 1922, p. 35.
- ^ Michael Rostovtzeff: Social and economic history of the Hellenistic world. Volume 2, Darmstadt 1998, p. 619 ff.
- ↑ Appian, Mithridates 92f.
- ^ William Linn Westermann : The slave systems of Greek and Roman antiquity. American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, Pa. 1984, pp. 65f. Westermann doubts the "sales capacity" of 10,000 / day mentioned by Strabon.
- ↑ Strabon, Geographika 14.5.2 (668).
- ↑ Diodorus 36.3.1.
- ↑ Strabon, Geographika 14.3.2 (664).
- ↑ Plutarch, Pompey 24-28.
- ↑ Adnan Diler: Lycian Olympos Dağında Bir Ön Araştırma. In: Turk Arkeologiji Dergisi 29 (1991), pp. 161–176 ( PDF; 18.1 MB ) and Orhan Atvur: Olympos Antik Kentı (1991–1992 Çalişmaları). In: Arkeoloji ve Sanat 88 (1999), pp. 13-31.
- ↑ Plutarch, Pompey 24.5.
- ^ Marcus Tullius Cicero , in Verrem 2.2.8; 3,213; Velleius Paterculus 2.31.3.
- ^ Appian, Mithridates 93.
- ^ Henry A. Ormerod: The Campaigns of Servilius Isauricus against the Pirates. 1922, p. 36f.
- ↑ Cicero, in Verrem 01/02/56.
- ↑ Florus, Epitome 3.6.
- ↑ Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman History 14.8.4.
- ↑ Velleius Paterculus 2.41.3–42.3; Suetonius , Caesar 4.1-2 and 74.1; Plutarch, Caesar 1.8-2.7; see. furthermore Valerius Maximus 6.9.15; completely different from Polyainos , Strategika 8.23.1.
- ^ So Suetonius, Caesar 4.1; Plutarch ( Caesar 1.8) wrongly dates Caesar's capture to around 80 BC. Chr.
- ↑ Plutarch, Caesar 2.1-4.
- ↑ a b Velleius Paterculus 2.42.2.
- ↑ This is the opinion of Luciano Canfora , Caesar. The democratic dictator , German Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-46640-0 , p. 25.
- ^ Plutarch, Caesar 2.7.
- ↑ Velleius Paterculus 2.42.3.
- ↑ Suetonius, Caesar 74.1.
- ↑ Fenestella, Fragment 30, in Hermann Peter, Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae (HRR), Vol. 2, p. 87.
- ↑ Cicero, pro lege Manilia 29-35; Cicero, per L. Valerio Flacco 29; Cassius Dio 36.20-37.
- ↑ Plutarch, Pompey 24.6; Appian, Mithridates 93.
- ^ Appian, Mithridates 95.
- ^ Appian, Mithridates 96.
- ^ NK Rauh, RW Townsend, M. Hoff, L. Wandsnider: Pirates in the Bay of Pamphylia. An Archaeological Inquiry. In: GJ Oliver (Ed.): The Sea in Antiquity . Hadrian Books, Oxford 2000, ISBN 1-84171-160-8 (British Archaeological Reports., International series 600. Online ( September 26, 2010 memento on WebCite )).
- ↑ Plutarch, Pompey 28.2.
- ^ Appian, Mithridates 96.
- ↑ Plutarch, Pompey 28.
- ↑ David Ulansey: The Origins of the Mithraic Cult. Theiss, Stuttgart 1998, p. 77f.
- ↑ Plutarch, Crassus 10.3-4.