When we think about pirates, the first thing that comes to mind is the so-called “golden age of piracy”, between the mid-17th century and the mid-18th century. We also generally associate them with the Caribbean Sea and the assault of ships that carried out trade between America and Europe, but that is not the case. Its existence is as old as the history of the first navigators. Thefts, raids and kidnappings of boats by these men of the sea outside the law have occurred since the beginning of time.
Although many people are unaware of it, in Ancient Rome they achieved so much power that they attacked entire cities and endangered the stability of the Republic. Their audacity was such that they even kidnapped Julius Caesar himself. As Silvia Miguens Narvaiz explains in her book ‘A brief history of pirates’ (Nowtilus, 2010), to find the origin of this new danger we must go back to the destruction of Carthage in the West and the defeat of the Greeks in the East. At that time, Rome became the owner of the Mediterranean, which it began to call “Mare Nostrum.”
Apparently there was no maritime power in that sea that could confront Rome, since it had become the hegemonic power of the world. None, except the pirates, although they did not want to admit it. The Roman Senate and top generals were convinced that these petty criminals who had once punished empires like Egypt were not a problem for them. That was the reason they chose not to maintain a large navy, since it was extraordinarily expensive. Why did they need it if there was no rival that could compete with them in the ocean?
Of course, they were wrong. The numerous wars that had plagued the eastern Mediterranean in the last centuries before the turn of the era increased the number of people who did not have sufficient means to survive. The only way they found to solve their problems and get out of poverty was, precisely, piracy. An easy path if we take into account that more and more goods circulated through the sea, whose wealth is manifested in literary texts and in the underwater excavations that have been carried out on shipwrecked ships.
razed cities
«It is not surprising that in this environment piracy flourished, both due to the apathy of the state powers that had to combat it and because of the constant confrontation between them, to a point where solitary ships or small defenseless villages were no longer attacked, but rather “The pirates formed authentic fleets with which they attacked cities and sanctuaries, attacked the Roman navy and kidnapped members of the nobility, the most famous case being that of the later dictator Caesar,” explains Luis. Amela Valverde in ‘Pirates against Rome: The fight for dominance of the Mediterranean’ (Nowtilus, 2024).
We must not forget, however, that when deploying its power over the ancient world, Rome also did so through confrontations and diplomatic agreements with the increasingly powerful world of pirates, although they constituted an anarchic force, without unity or leaders. When piracy grew and spread terror throughout the Mediterranean and its ships, in increasing numbers, gradually began to strangle the flow of trade between cities, the Senate found it necessary to actively intervene.
The most threatened were, of course, the merchant ships, especially those that transported grain to the city of Rome, a metropolis that at that time was already overpopulated and consumed a large amount of basic necessities. The increasingly frequent pirate attacks caused, thanks to this, food shortages and unpredictable periods of famine that had nothing to do with natural disasters.
There came a time when pirates became “the common enemies of humanity,” as Cicero noted: “A pirate is not considered an enemy of war, but rather a common enemy of the whole world.” Amela Valverde thus clarifies in her essay what the politician and philosopher of the 1st century BC meant. C. «The pirates waged a war without legitimate authority and acted for profit, without choosing their victims based on political, social or ethnic criteria. Therefore, if a Roman general obtained victory over the pirates, he would not receive a celebration of victory, but rather an ovation, since the antagonist was humble and unworthy, like slaves.
Pirates reborn
Never mind that the enormous pirate presence was putting at risk not only their trade, but also the very possession of the territories in Asia. The problem was so serious that the Senate had to take action on the matter. In order to use the great diplomatic pressure and military force that had developed in the last decades of the Republic, Rome created a province in the southern coastal area of the Anatolian peninsula. Its name: Cilicia. In 102 BC C., the Senate also appointed General Marco Antonio the Praetor Orator with proconsular power of this region, whose mission was none other than to subdue the pirate threat.
During the three years of his mandate, Mark Antony carried out a systematic persecution by land and sea. His victories were so important that the Senate, for the first time in history, decided to dedicate one of these “triumphs” in his honor. It was a spectacular ceremony that could only be granted by the Senate for a military commander who had returned victorious from a campaign in foreign lands. However, it was a momentary and partial triumph, since the pirates soon appeared on the scene again. And, even worse, because they did not do it alone, but in association with Mithridates the Great, the King of Pontus, from 120 BC. C. until his death in 63 BC. c.
We are talking about the eastern monarch whose story we already told you a week ago, who, together with the pirates, made the all-powerful Roman Republic tremble using the poisons that he had known and suffered in his childhood. Firstly, the one that his mother provided to his father at a banquet held in 120 BC. C., when he was just a child. As a result, his father died and he had to flee from his mother and hide in the forests to avoid the same fate. He lived there alone, from 8 to 14 years old like a wild animal, feeding on what he found in the ground and trees. Thus he accustomed his body to all kinds of hardships and the harshest conditions that a man can endure.
The profit of pirates
Shortly after consummating his revenge, the famous King of Pontus was considered one of the most feared soldiers in Asia Minor, despite which he never managed to get rid of the fear of dying from poison. Such was the paranoia that entered him, in memory of that tragic event from his childhood carried out by his own mother, who while he was escaping, humiliating and annihilating the troops of the most powerful generals and dictators of the Roman Republic, he himself murdered his brother, his four children and many other unfortunate people in his inner circle. This did not make him lose the focus of his fight against the Romans, whom he continually attacked, with the help of pirates at sea.
Mithridates was one of Rome’s most feared enemies. He fought against three of his most important generals at the end of the Republic: Sulla, Lucullus and Pompey. United in the fight against Rome, the alliance between the Cilician pirates and Mithridates was strategic and mutually beneficial. “In addition to having a common and equally hated enemy, the pirates gained legitimate recognition for their plundering activities, while the King of Pontus received important support from a highly organized group that kept the Romans busy in the eastern Mediterranean,” points out Miguens Narvaiz.
The Cilician pirates were undoubtedly the most feared in Ancient Rome. So much so that some researchers have even raised the possibility of creating something like a nation of pirates. Their power in the Anatolian peninsula was so great that they established different bases with difficult access. This allowed them to replenish supplies and escape from patrols when they tried to stop their activities. They continued like this until, finally, they were defeated by Pompey the Great, who, far from massacring them, decided to establish ties of dependence with them that would last until the arrival of his son, Sextus Pompey.
The latter relied on different pirates to wage a guerrilla war in the Iberian Peninsula against Julius Caesar and, later, against Octavian, the future Augustus. Despite the support received from piracy, Sextus Pompey was finally defeated and accused of having supported the pirates, of having given them carte blanche to carry out their misdeeds and of himself employing tactics of plunder and plunder as if he were one of them. The main accusation, however, was giving them positions of high responsibility. Thus piracy ended in the Republic and gave way to the Empire.
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