Nicolas Rauh (Purdue University, Indiana) "Pirates et voyageurs en Méditerranée orientale : le cas de la Cilicie".

    Travel in the Era of the Cilician Pirates

    Although local and regional forms of piracy always existed in the Mediterranean, the Cilician pirate menace that raged throughout the Mediterranean between 139-67 BC posed new and unprecedented dangers to Mediterranean travelers. Unlike piracy of local or regional origin, Cilician piracy represented a cultural conflict of unrivaled proportions. This conflict pitted maritime laboring elements of the emerging Roman world against the land based social orders responsible for organizing and managing the sailors very workplace. In the final analysis, pirates were maritime workers who took the extreme action of open rebellion against the merchants and landowners who governed Mediterranean trade.

    Expelled from mainland society as slaves, youths, or criminals, ancient Mediterranean sailors toiled in a world of creaking wooden hulks at sea and squalid, if cosmopolitan harbors on land. The collective nature of their work and their irreversible segregation from land dwelling elements forced maritime laborers to construct a separate cultural identity for themselves. They forged this identity through highly disciplined, cooperative labor in the ancient world's most mechanized workplace (the ancient sailing vessel). They spoke the barking, profane language of sea borne commands and took visible pride in the sailor's tolerance for pain and tendency toward dissent. The sailor's cultural separation from land dwelling elements of the Mediterranean world fostered a sense of antipathy for the same.

    The maritime laborer's consciousness of cultural and social separation expressed itself in more virulent terms when sailors turned to piracy. Pirates attempted to right perceived wrongs in hierarchical society by organizing utopian pirate communities in contradistinction to the world left behind. At the same time pirates fostered solidarity and sought justice against a common foe by assaulting land dwelling orders through violence and mockery. Economically, they exploited their hard learned knowledge of the maritime networks of their employers by working to subvert the same.

    Depending on their status, Mediterranean travelers during this era of widespread piracy found themselves victimized either as pawns of or as participants in land dwelling supremacy. Travelers closest to the reigns of Mediterranean power, such as Roman aristocrats and ordinary Roman citizens, endured terrorist-style kidnappings, property assault, and other violent forms of reprisal. Since pirates could rarely afford to make distinctions, non-Roman travelers, including the pirates fellow sailors, were also subject to abuse. Psychologically, the fear of travel probably surpassed the actual level of danger. Sources note that maritime traffic came to a stand still in the Mediterranean, even during the quiet winter months.

    The Cilician pirates ability to aggravate the instinctual fear of maritime travel ultimately compelled Roman authorities to marshal sufficient military resources to suppress the pirate menace. Ironically, Pompey the Great's solution was to restore thousands of captured pirates to the land, thereby reversing momentarily a long cycle of rural agricultural expulsion. Afterward, Roman imperial authorities remained cognizant of the importance of maritime laborers to the well being of the Mediterranean world system.