One of the sorry side effects of wealth is that it also attracts thugs. When a trade worth almost USD one billion passes by your shores every year, the temptation to grab a piece becomes irresistible for many people. Capturing a grain ship with 300 tons was worth close to USD 582'000, 931 slaves or 4'656 donkeys - a real haul!
Apparently the centre piece of this mosaic shows pirates attacking a Roman ship
In the first and second week, we are going to visit two of the pre-eminent pirates’ nests on the Cilician coast. Side which hosted the biggest slave market in the Mediterranean where apparently 10’000 slaves/day were sold (I call this a gross exaggeration!) and Alanya where Pompeius the Great (lover of Cleopatra and Caesar’s arch-rival) defeated the pirates’ fleet in open sea battle in 66 BC.
Side which became a wealthy Roman town exporting olive
oil after its shady past as main slave trading center in 100 BC
Alanya where Pompeius defeated the pirates in 67 BC
Cilicia's coast became a pirates’ paradise for three closely related reasons:
- The grain ships had to pass by on their way to Rome since they needed the thermal wind system to sail west against the pre-dominant wind direction
- Cilicia often changed hands between the Seleucid (mainly in Anatolia) and Ptolemaic Empire (mainly Egypt) - successor states of Alexander’s Empire. It was a kind of lawless no-man’s land
- the Roman hunger for slaves after their conquest of Carthago was hugh - they needed slaves to work the depopulated lands in Sicily and Northern Africa which supplied Rome with wheat. Romans were for > 100 years the best customers of Cilician pirates(sic!)
Caesar requesting that his ransom is doubled after being
captured by pirates the 2nd time
The Romans began changing their mind after Julius Caesar was twice captured by Cicilian pirates. When the pirates started negotiating and aligning themselves with Spartacus, the successful leader of the 3rd slave rebellion in Italy, the threat to Rome was too big to be ignored. Spartacus had already defeated several legions. They did not need him to acquire naval capabilities! The Pirates had to be exterminated.
Pompeius’ army landing in Side
A sizeable army and fleet under Pompeius the Great (later an arch rival to Caesar) was dispatched in 67 BC and made short shrift of any resistance. Anyone who fought back got killed, prisoners of war were crucified, the rest was forced to leave their homes and resettled randomly over the entire Empire. Serving justice by Roman standards - ethnic cleansing by today’s.
The Pax Romana - Roman Peace - was established and underpinned the economic prosperity of the Mediteranenan for the next 500 years! The great wheat trade could circulate unmolested.
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