Читать книгу The History of Piracy and Navigation - Dr. Suk Kyoon Kim - Страница 6

Gnaeus Pompey Magnus As the pirates disrupted shipping, low-class merchants and workers engaged in trade lost their jobs, and the common people greatly suffered from the soaring prices of their necessities. For this reason, the mere news of the Senate’s counter-piracy bill was enough to send prices down. The common people greatly supported the bill, and the Senate promptly passed the revised bill the following day. The swift enactment was made possible, in part, due to the support of Julius Caesar. An episode behind it will be described shortly. Under the powerful imperium, Pompey completely eradicated the pirates off the Italian Peninsula in less than 40 days. Within three months, the pirates across the Mediterranean were broken and scattered, too. What made him so swiftly and effectively complete his mission? Apart from imperium, his strategy employed coordinated strikes between maritime and land forces, and that proved key to his amazing successes. Pompey divided the Mediterranean into 13 districts and placed each of them under the command of deputy commanders, called legates. While commanding a back-up squadron consisting of 60 warships, Pompey instructed the deputy commanders to blockade the pirates from going to the sea and to drive them to land. Then Pompey launched attacks from the coast of Spain eastwards. The pirates were forced to flee to the southern coast of Cilicia (the coast of modern Turkey), once known as the safe haven of pirates. The Roman troops attacked these Cilician pirate strongholds and bases with overwhelming force. The simultaneous attacks on land and at sea were extremely successful. The Roman troops destroyed no fewer than 500 pirate ships and 120 pirate bases, killing more than 10,000 pirates. Only a small number of pirates were able to flee from the attacks. Pompey treated surrendered pirates leniently, not crucifying them. In the aftermath, the Mediterranean was cleared of pirates for the first time throughout history, and shipping was prosperous again. The Roman marketplaces were full of foods and grains from various regions across the Mediterranean, and the price of goods stabilized. The Mediterranean enjoyed peace and security free from the pirate threat for another four centuries until the collapse of the West Roman Empire. When Pompey returned to Rome in triumph, Romans cheered tremendously for his brilliant campaigns. Pompey became a national hero and this led him to his second consulship. Julius Caesar and Pirates Young Caesar worked as a lawyer as well as a prosecutor. Caesar was engaged in the impeachment of a key aide to Sulla (138–78 B.C.), a general as well as politician who had risen to consulship twice and ruled Rome under a dictatorship. Caesar failed to impeach him and consequently he became a target of the Sulla faction. The young Caesar, at the age of 24, opted to go abroad to save himself from the threat. His choice was Rhodes, a Greek island off the Anatolian coast of Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which was an intellectual capital alongside Athens. Rhodes at the time was the hub of trade as well. Its wealth and power might be well demonstrated by the Colossus of Rhodes, a gigantic statue erected in commemoration of victory over a battle with Macedonia in 290 B.C. The statue, whose height was up to 34 meters (equivalent of the Statue of Liberty from the feet to the crown), collapsed during the earthquake of 226 B.C. and was taken apart by Saracens who invaded the island in 653. Rhodes also held a significant position in terms of the evolution of the law of the sea. Rhodes was the center in the evolution of the law of the sea, particularly in terms of settling maritime and trade disputes. The early customary law of the sea is called the ‘Rhodesian Sea Law.’ The principle of freedom of navigation today was established through the Rhodesian Sea Law. Young Caesar sought a refuge in Rhodes, in the name of studying abroad. On the way to Rhodes, the ship that he was aboard was seized by Cilician pirates in 75 B.C. Pompey’s massive counter-pirate campaign was still 10 years away, so piracy was still rampant in the area. When the pirates demanded a ransom of 20 talents, the equivalent of annual salaries for 4,300 soldiers at the time, Caesar began to laugh loudly. If he could not afford to pay the ransom, he would have been sold into slavery or been killed. In this midst of this crisis, Caesar came up with a clever ruse. Hoping to buy time, he offered to pay 50 talents, implying that he was worth a much higher ransom if only the pirates could be patient. The pirates were fascinated by his offer. They thought that there would be nothing to lose for them, except a delay in ransom payment, and besides, they could always execute him if it turned out he wasn’t worth keeping alive. Caesar sent his followers to raise money while he was held hostage with his two servants. The pirates, who believed that they held a son of a wealthy Roman nobleman, were excited about the enormous ransom. During his captivity, Caesar laughingly told them he would have them all crucified once he was released – thinking this a good joke, the pirates laughed along with him. For 40 days, until his followers came back with the ransom that he had offered, he stalled for time and lived among the pirates. As soon as he paid it and was set free, he rushed to nearby Miletus to prepare attacks on the pirates. Sailing from Miletus, he raided the pirates’ base and captured nearly all of them. Entrusted by the governor of Asia Minor to deal with the pirates, he crucified all of them, as he had promised. After two years in Rhodes, Caesar came back to Roman politics. Caesar’s support for granting imperium to his rival Pompey might have been derived from his bitter firsthand experience with the pirates.