re also
to be the last of all those Greek maritime states that formerly filled
the Mediterranean to succumb to the Roman continental power.

The Pirates in the Mediterranean

All the legal conditions were fulfilled for celebrating another
of the usual pompous triumphs; the gens of the Metelli could add
to its Macedonian, Numidian, Dalmatian, Balearic titles with equal
right the new title of Creticus, and Rome possessed another name
of pride. Nevertheless the power of the Romans in the Mediterranean
was never lower, that of the corsairs never higher, than in those
years. Well might the Cilicians and Cretans of the seas, who are
said to have numbered at this time 1000 ships, mock the Isauricus
and the Creticus, and their empty victories. With what effect
the pirates interfered in the Mithradatic war, and how the obstinate
resistance of the Pontic maritime towns derived its best resources
from the corsair-state, has been already related. But that state
transacted business on a hardly less grand scale on its own behoof.
Almost under the eyes of the fleet of Lucullus, the pirate Athenodorus
surprised in 685 the island of Delos, destroyed its far-famed
shrines and temples, and carried off the whole population
into slavery. The island Lipara near Sicily paid to the pirates
a fixed tribute annually, to remain exempt from like attacks.
Another pirate chief Heracleon destroyed in 682 the squadron
equipped in Sicily against him, and ventured with no more than four
open boats to sail into the harbour of Syracuse. Two years later
his colleague Pyrganion even landed at the same port, established
himself there and sent forth flying parties into the island,
till the Roman governor at last compelled him to re-embark.
People grew at length quite accustomed to the fact that all
the provinces equipped squadrons and raised coastguards,
or were at any rate taxed for both; and yet the pirates appeared
to plunder the provinces with as much regularity as the Roman governors.
But even the sacred soil of Italy was now no longer respected
by the shameless transgressors: from Croton they carried off with them
the temple-treasures of the Lacinian Hera; they landed in Brundisium,
Misenum, Caieta, in the Etruscan ports, even in Ostia itself; they
seized the most eminent Roman officers as captives, among others
the admiral of the Cilician army and two praetors with their whole
retinue, with the dreaded -fasces- themselves and all the insignia