How Julius Caesar Defeated The Pirates

April 14, 2009

Piracy has always been a menace to ships. In the last years of the Republic, the Romans had plenty of trouble with pirates sailing around the Mediterranean.

The criminals ruled the seas in the 1st century BC, interrupting trade, stealing treasures, and holding rich Romans for ransom.

In her facinating book Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs, classical folklorist Adrienne Mayor reports an ancient account of pirates kidnapping a young Julius Caesar in about 75 BC and holding him for ransom.

“Caesar managed to escape, using a clever trick involving barrels of mandrake-laced wine, and later took revenge,” Mayor said.

Here is the pirate anecdote, as written by Polyaenus in his Stratagems:

"….. Caesar was captured by some Cilician pirates near Cape Malea [SE tip of Greece]. When they demanded a very large sum for his ransom, he promised to double it.

As soon as they had reached Miletus [on the coast of Turkey], and landed there, he dispatched Epicrates, his Milesian servant, to the Milesians, asking them to lend him the sum he required for ransom. . .

Epicrates was also commanded by Caesar, at the same when he brought the money back to the pirates, to also bring everything required for a magnificent feast, together with a water-pot secretly filled with swords, and several amphoras of wine with [poison] mandrake steeped in it.

Caesar then paid the pirates the double sum, as he had promised; and invited them to partake of the banquet he had prepared. In high spirits at the large sum they had received, they indulged eagerly in the feast and drank freely of the drugged wine, which presently sent them to sleep.

In that state Caesar ordered them to be slain, and he immediately repaid the ransom money to the Milesians."

Comments

[michael addicott]

very interesting account, thanks, mentioned here...
http://blog.cognitivelabs.com/2009/04/caesars-pirates.html