es, who, deeming him a person of great distinction,
held him at a high ransom. For six weeks Caesar remained in their hands,
waiting until his ransom should be paid. He was in no respect downcast
by his misfortune, but took part freely in the games and pastimes of
the pirates, and, according to Plutarch, treated them with such disdain
that whenever their noise disturbed his sleep he sent orders to them to
keep silence. In his familiar conversations with the chiefs he plainly
told them that he would one day crucify them all. Doubtless they laughed
heartily at this pleasantry, as they deemed it, but they were to find it
a grim sort of jest.

Caesar was released at last, the ransom paid amounting to about fifty
thousand dollars. He lost not a moment in carrying out his threat.
Obtaining a fleet of Milesian vessels, he sailed immediately to the
island in which he had been held captive, and descended upon the pirates
so suddenly that he took them prisoners while they were engaged in
dividing their plunder. Carrying them to Pergamus, he handed them over
to the civil authorities, by whom his promise of crucifying them all was
duly carried out. Then he went to Rhodes, and spent two years in the
study of elocution. He had proved himself an awkward kind of prey for
pirates.

These worthies continued their depredations, and became at length so
annoying that extraordinary measures were taken for their suppression.
Pompey, then the most powerful man in Rome, was given absolute control
over the Mediterranean. This was not done without opposition, for it was
feared that he aspired to kingly rule. "You aspire to be Romulus; beware
of the fate of Romulus," said some of the opposing senators.

Despite opposition the power was given him, and he used it with
remarkable results. A large fleet was at once got ready and put to sea,
confining its operations at first to the west of the Mediterranean, and
driving the piratical fleets towards their lurking-places in the east.
Land troops meanwhile guarded the coasts. In the brief space of forty
days he reported to the senate that the whole sea west of Greece was
cleared of pirates.

Then he sailed for the Archipelago, swept its inlets, spread his ships
everywhere, and drove the foe towards Cilicia. Here they gathered their
fleet and gave him battle, but suffered a total defeat. A surrender
followed, to which he won them over by lenient terms. In three months
from the day he began his work the