Menodorus

This article deals with the pirate Admiral Menodoros, for more persons of this name see Menodoros (disambiguation) .

Menodoros († 35 BC in Siscia ), also known under the short form Menas , was a Cilician or Greek pirate and admiral who served under Sextus Pompeius during the Roman Civil War and was considered the prototype of the traitor .

Roman trireme (mosaic, Tunisia)

During the pirate war, Menodorus was founded around 67 BC. Chr. Of Pompey captured later at a not exactly known time released and Pompey's clientele adopted. After the assassination of Pompey in 48 BC BC off the Egyptian coast he stayed with his sons. No later than 44 BC. He served Sextus Pompeius, who was appointed prefect of the fleet by the Senate , as admiral, initially when the Roman fleet was concentrated in Massilia .

After the formation of the Second Triumvirate by Marcus Antonius , Octavian and Lepidus , Pompey conquered in the winter of 43/42 BC. BC Sicily as a safe base for the now beginning naval war to blockade Italy . Octavian's first counterattack under the command of Quintus Salvidienus Rufus in the spring of 42 BC. The ships of Pompey, presumably commanded by Menodorus, fended off at Scyllaeum in the Strait of Messina .

After the Peruvian War , Pompey sent in the summer of 40 BC. BC Menodorus for the conquest of Sardinia and Corsica , which islands he successfully took from Octavian's governor, Marcus Lurius . In the waters of the Narbonensis he captured the independent privateer Marcus Titius .

In the summer of 39 BC BC Menodoros accompanied Pompeius to Misenum to the conference with the triumvirs Antonius and Octavian. During the celebrations on Pompey's flagship after the conclusion of the Treaty of Misenum , Menodorus proposed to his master that he should seize the two triumvirs.

"Shall I," he said, "cut the ropes and make you master not only of Sicily and Sardinia, but of the whole Roman Empire?"

Sextus Pompey replied that he should have done it without asking him, as he was now bound by the sworn contract.

Promoted by Pompey to governor in Sardinia and Corsica, Menodorus - as he was made suspicious of Pompey by Lucius Staius Murcus and Menekrates - a little later began secret negotiations with Octavian. After an agreement he handed over to this in the summer of 38 BC. The two islands together with three legions and sixty ships. Octavian had him as a reward in the knighthood rise and set it as a legacy to his fleet commander Gaius Calvisius Sabinus .

The theater of war Italy

senate

Octavian

Mark Antony

Lepidus

Sextus Pompey

When Octavian resumed the offensive with the reinforcements he had brought in, the squadrons under the command of Calvisius at Cumae met Pompey's fleet, which was now commanded by his previous Vice-Admiral Menekrates. In a duel between the ships of the Menecrates and the traitor Menodorus, the naval commander of Pompey was killed, so that his deputy Demochares ordered the retreat despite the promising situation. Nevertheless, Octavian's offensive was repulsed after another battle in the Strait of Messina, with the “Sea King” finally being helped by a heavy storm that severely affected Octavian's squadrons.

Shortly before the start of the next offensive, Menodorus went in early 36 BC. Back to Sextus Pompeius with seven ships. But this seemed to no longer trust him, and in the summer of the same year he sent him with only seven ships to reconnaissance against Octavian's newly approaching fleets, which Menorodos promptly used to overflow again. In the decisive naval battle of Naulochoi , Menodoros probably fought under the command of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa . In the following year he accompanied Octavian to Illyria and Pannonia , where he was killed during the siege of Siscia in a ship battle on the Save .

In the sources as well as in the literature Menodorus is described as a notorious traitor. According to the old scholiasts, Menas is also the target of the violent attacks of Horace in his fourth epode. In Appian his name is given with Menodoros , in Cassius Dio , Velleius Paterculus and Orosius, however, with the short form Menas . William Shakespeare , in whose play Antonius and Cleopatra Menas plays a role, also orientated himself towards the latter .

literature

• Silvia Miguens, Breve Historia de los Piratas , Ediciones Nowtilus, 2010, pp. 87-96 ISBN 978-84-976-3708-4 [1]
• Bruno Schor, contributions to the history of the Sextus Pompeius , Hochschulverlag, Stuttgart 1978, pp. 131-134 ISBN 3-8107-2015-1 .

Remarks

1. ^ Livius , periochae 123 ; Appian , Civil Wars 4, 84; Cassius Dio , Roman History 48, 17-19.
2. ^ Appian, Civil Wars 5:56 ; Cassius Dio, Roman History 48, 30.
3. ^ Plutarch , Antonius 32, 4 .
4. ^ Appian, Civil Wars 5, 73.
5. ^ Appian, Civil Wars 5, 78; Cassius Dio, Roman History 48, 45.
6. ^ Appian, Civil Wars 5, 79–92.
7. ^ Appian, Civil Wars 5, 102; Cassius Dio, Roman History 49, 1.