em
into the meshes of a colleague. He himself went with the best part
of the ships of war that were available--among which on this occasion
also those of Rhodes were distinguished--early in the year to sea,
and swept in the first place the Sicilian, African, and Sardinian
waters, with a view especially to re-establish the supply of grain
from these provinces to Italy. His lieutenants meanwhile addressed
themselves to the clearing of the Spanish and Gallic coasts.
It was on this occasion that the consul Gaius Piso attempted
from Rome to prevent the levies which Marcus Pomponius, the legate
of Pompeius, instituted by virtue of the Gabinian law in the province
of Narbo--an imprudent proceeding, to check which, and at the same
time to keep the just indignation of the multitude against
the consul within legal bounds, Pompeius temporarily reappeared
in Rome.(1) When at the end of forty days the navigation had been
everywhere set free in the western basin of the Mediterranean,
Pompeius proceeded with sixty of his best vessels to the eastern
seas, and first of all to the original and main seat of piracy,
the Lycian and Cilician waters. On the news of the approach
of the Roman fleet the piratical barks everywhere disappeared
from the open sea; and not only so, but even the strong Lycian fortresses
of Anticragus and Cragus surrendered without offering serious
resistance. The well-calculated moderation of Pompeius helped
even more than fear to open the gates of these scarcely accessible
marine strongholds. His predecessors had ordered every captured
freebooter to be nailed to the cross; without hesitation he gave
quarter to all, and treated in particular the common rowers found
in the captured piratical vessels with unusual indulgence.
The bold Cilician sea-kings alone ventured on an attempt to maintain
at least their own waters by arms against the Romans; after having
placed their children and wives and their rich treasures for
security in the mountain-fortresses of the Taurus, they awaited
the Roman fleet at the western frontier of Cilicia, in the offing
of Coracesium. But here the ships of Pompeius, well manned and well
provided with all implements of war, achieved a complete victory.
Without farther hindrance he landed and began to storm and break up
the mountain-castles of the corsairs, while he continued to offer
to themselves freedom and life as the price of submission. Soon
the great multitude desisted from the co