s, and
with deep bays and harbors between them. The people of Cilicia were
accordingly half sailors, half mountaineers. They built swift galleys,
and made excursions in great force over the Mediterranean Sea for
conquest and plunder. They would capture single ships, and sometimes
even whole fleets of merchantmen. They were even strong enough on many
occasions to land and take possession of a harbor and a town, and hold
it, often, for a considerable time, against all the efforts of the
neighboring powers to dislodge them. In case, however, their enemies
became at any time too strong for them, they would retreat to their
harbors, which were so defended by the fortresses which guarded them,
and by the desperate bravery of the garrisons, that the pursuers
generally did not dare to attempt to force their way in; and if, in any
case, a town or a port was taken, the indomitable savages would continue
their retreat to the fastnesses of the mountains, where it was utterly
useless to attempt to follow them.

[Sidenote: The Cilicians wanting in poets and historians.]
[Sidenote: Robbers and pirates.]

But with all their prowess and skill as naval combatants, and their
hardihood as mountaineers, the Cilicians lacked one thing which is very
essential in every nation to an honorable military fame. They had no
poets or historians of their own, so that the story of their deeds had
to be told to posterity by their enemies. If they had been able to
narrate their own exploits, they would have figured, perhaps, upon the
page of history as a small but brave and efficient maritime power,
pursuing for many years a glorious career of conquest, and acquiring
imperishable renown by their enterprise and success. As it was, the
Romans, their enemies, described their deeds and gave them their
designation. They called them robbers and pirates; and robbers and
pirates they must forever remain.

[Sidenote: Depredations of the Cilicians.]

And it is, in fact, very likely true that the Cilician commanders did
not pursue their conquests and commit their depredations on the rights
and the property of others in quite so systematic and methodical a
manner as some other conquering states have done. They probably seized
private property a little more unceremoniously than is customary; though
all belligerent nations, even in these Christian ages of the world, feel
at liberty to seize and confiscate private property when they find it
afloat at sea, while, b