ere in possession of the seas with a powerful force and numerous
ships.

II. The pirates asked Caesar twenty talents for his ransom, on which he
laughed at them for not knowing who their prize was, and he promised
to give them fifty talents. While he dispatched those about him to
various cities to raise the money, he was left with one friend and
two attendants among these Cilician pirates, who were notorious for
their cruelty, yet he treated them with such contempt that whenever he
was lying down to rest, he would send to them and order them to be
quiet. He spent eight and thirty days among them, not so much like a
prisoner as a prince surrounded by his guards, and he joined in their
sports and exercises with perfect unconcern. He also wrote poems and
some speeches which he read to them, and those who did not approve of
his compositions he would call to their faces illiterate fellows and
barbarians, and he would often tell them with a laugh that he would
hang them all. The pirates were pleased with his manners, and
attributed this freedom of speech to simplicity and a mirthful
disposition. As soon as the ransom came from Miletus and Caesar had
paid it and was set at liberty, he manned some vessels in the port of
Miletus and went after the pirates, whom he found still on the island,
and he secured most of them. All their property he made his booty; but
the pirates, he lodged in prison at Pergamum, and then went to
Junius,[443] who, as governor of the provinces of Asia, was the proper
person to punish the captives. But as the governor was casting a
longing eye on the booty, which was valuable, and said he would take
time to consider about the captives, Caesar without more ado, left him
and going straight to Pergamum took all the pirates out of prison and
crucified them, as he had often told them he would do in the island
when they thought he was merely jesting.

III. Sulla's power was now declining, and Caesar's friends in Rome
recommended him to return. However, he first made a voyage to Rhodus
in order to have the instruction of Apollonius the son of Molon,[444]
of whom Cicero also was a hearer. This Apollonius was a distinguished
rhetorician, and had the reputation of being a man of a good
disposition. Caesar is said to have had a great talent for the
composition of discourses on political matters, and to have cultivated
it most diligently, so as to obtain beyond dispute the second rank;
his ambition to be first in p