But
the pirates of the Mediterranean had learnt from the Romans the advantage
of union, and had drifted into a vast confederation. Cilicia was their
head-quarters. Servilius had checked them for a time, but the Roman Senate
was too eager for a revenue, and the Roman governors and farmers of the
taxes were too bent upon filling their private purses, to allow fleets to
be maintained in the provincial harbors adequate to keep the peace. When
Servilius retired, the pirates reoccupied their old haunts. The Cilician
forests furnished them with ship timber. The mountain gorges provided
inaccessible storehouses for plunder. Crete was completely in their hands
also, and they had secret friends along the entire Mediterranean shores.
They grew at last into a thousand sail, divided into squadrons under
separate commanders. They were admirably armed. They roved over the waters
at their pleasure, attacking islands or commercial ports, plundering
temples and warehouses, arresting every trading vessel they encountered,
till at last no Roman could go abroad on business save during the winter
storms, when the sea was comparatively clear. They flaunted their sails in
front of Ostia itself; they landed in their boats at the villas on the
Italian coast, carrying off lords and ladies, and holding them to ransom.
They levied black-mail at their pleasure.
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