Were Pirates Really So Much of a Threat That Even a Military Genius Like Julius Caesar Had to Be Sent To Fight Them?

[SlamDunkerista]

So many ages ago when I was playing Age of Empires, the very first mission of Caesar's campaign was to wipe out a fleet of pirates. I lost a few times and I remember the Defeat screen saying that because Caesar used his own private fundings for the military expedition, he is pardoned and won't face imprisonment, loss of military and political leadership, and nmnost importantly a lawsuit from the Roman government for loss of warships..... But it sstated something the Republic will take over in battling the pirates since Cesar's defeat alerted the Senate just how big of an issue the pirate attacks are. When I won the campaign, it emphasizes just how big a boost it is to Caesar's career that he managed to wipe out the entire pirate coalition.

In addition I finally watched the entire Once Upon a Time In China series for the first time in completeness rather than just stopping at the 3rd movie the last few times I seen the film over the past decades. The 4th movie had Jet Li on the mission to capture the pirates and he doesn't simply use the police but gets an entire militia and round up 50 volunteers so they can capture one of the heads through abn unexpected ship counterattack. He then uses the captured pirate leader to gather intel and attack the pirate base with an elite cadre of volunteers and then continues holding the elader hostage awaiting for the rest of the pirate fleet to attack the enarest town in retaliation for ransacking their unprotected base and in expectation they will try to free their leader by attacking the local prison. He has the complete militia force of over 200 to fortify the town and a big battle takes plae as over 400 pirates besiege the town.......

So this makes me wonder........ Were pirates so huge a deal that not only do local militaries like Jet Li's character in Once Upon A Time in China have to mobilize a military force to defend against them but even a brilliant military mind like JUlius Caesar have to be sent in sometimes to battle them?

Oh I almost forgot, Ben HUr even has a battle between Greek pirates and the Roman Navy that ended with not just the ROman deeat but the Admiral's ship being destroyed and it kicks off the whole reason why Massala was even able to become a charioteer. Because he saved the admiral from drowning, the Roman militaryman takes him in as an adopted son and gives him funding to become one of the best chariot rider throughout the whole empire.

Is this actual realistic? That actual professional navy could lose to a bunch of ragtailed pirates in an engagement?

For a long time I couldn't believe Caesar actually had been sent to fight pirates until I learned recently the event was real. And ditto with the idea of a Roman fleet facing defeat from pirates.......

Just how far fetched is Once Upon A Time in China sending Jet Li to mobilize a militia to defend a community from pirates? Was piracy really the big a danger?

 

[DAv]

Julius Caesar was one of many aspiring commanders at this time, it wouldn't be until his political rise and the conquest of Gaul that his own fame became cemented. But for this, it's not Caesar to look to, but Pompey, who was basically given carte blanche to deal with the pirate threat at the time. Rome depended on food imports to keep grain going into the city. Pirates threatened this and Rome's communications with its provinces in the Empire. Being allowed to go free meant they were a major threat and had to be dealt with.

 

[TRH]

It varied a lot, but there were some situations in history in which pirate fleets just grew larger and larger until they became navies unto themselves, and even developed state apparatuses to support themselves. The most famous of these were the Barbary States in North Africa, but another notable example was Zheng Yi Sao, who rose to command a fleet of hundreds of warships crewed by tens of thousands of pirates in early 19th century China. She preyed upon both Chinese and European shipping, conscripted European sailors who couldn’t pay ransom to serve as gunners, extorted protection money from Cantonese merchants and other communities along the southern coast of China, and even set up tax collection.

The Chinese government had no organized navy at the time and had no hope of defeating Zheng’s forces conventionally, and were ultimately forced to just bribing her and her forces into retirement.

Basically pirates are what happen when a government is unable to enforce order on their coasts. If left unchecked, they can potentially snowball to the point of acquiring all the resources a state and professional navy could.

 

[Elfwine]

Yeah. There's nothing about "pirate" that makes them inevitably any more ragtailed than a professional navy, except relative resources - and successful pirates are not exactly lacking the means to get good ships and good crews.

 

[SlyDessertFox]

I can't speak for the rest of the world and other times in history but eastern mediterranean piracy was endemic by the 1st century BCE.

The question should rather be-were pirates such a threat that the most decorated commander in Rome at the time-Pompey-had to be given an extraordinary command over the entirety of the eastern mediterranean to defeat them-and the answer is: yes. By the time Pompey gets his pirate command, Rome had been flummoxed by how to deal with eastern Med pirates for at least a century (well, longer if you count the Illyrian pirates that get them into the other side of the Adriatic in the first place). Ironically, the piracy problem was partly a result of the Romans own success-by the mid second century the powers in the eastern Med were basically too weak to successfully curtail piracy, and the Romans also benefited from the sale of slaves that piracy offered (Rome, more than any other power at the time by a fair margin, had a voracious appetite for slaves, the slave trade boomed in the 2nd century BCE). Essentially: Internecine war (and the dislocation that produced), weakened governments, and a booming slave economy created the perfect conditions for a sort of golden age of piracy in the Mediterranean. The most powerful naval force in that region at the time were the pirates. They were essentially uncontested-and so pirates became their own major power players in the politics of the region (Mithradates made considerable use of pirates against the Romans, and the dislocation of the Mithradatic wars created even more of them).

Between 140 and the 66 BCE the Romans sent a considerable array of high level attention on pirates: None other than Scipio Aemilianus was sent to look into the pirate problem in the 140s. Marcus Antonius Orator (grandfather of Marc Antony) was directed to deal with Cilician pirates in 102 as a praetor. In 78 BCE, they gave Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus, one of Sulla's strongest and most famous supporters, a proconsular command to deal with the Cilician pirates after his 79 BCE consulship. And finally, in 68 BCE, Cilician piracy had gotten so bad that they raided Ostia, burned the port and the grain with it and sent Rome into a panic over potential famine-it is this that finally got Rome to give Pompey, the most powerful man in Rome and the most decorated commander around at the time, an unprecedented command of any province within 50 miles of the Mediterranean for the purposes of crushing the pirates once and for all.

 

[kholieken]

There's nothing about "pirate" that makes them inevitably any more ragtailed than a professional navy, except relative resources - and successful pirates are not exactly lacking the means to get good ships and good crews.

On other hand, we keep hearing how expensive navy fleet is. Byzantine and Chinese records seem to indicate that building fleet cost large part of state treasuries. And there are report of naval defeat so devastating that entire coastline open to invasion and it took years to rebuild navy. Some country also failed to rebuilt naval capabilities and had to rely on foreigners or ex-pirates (Byzantine dependence on Italian, China and Japan on dealing with wukou sea kings).

Is good navy cheap enough that can be built by local pirates (Illyrians, Wukou) or they need considerable investment from government (Rome, Byzantine, China, France) ?? It seems weird that some people could built menacing navy easily (Caliphate Navy) while other people had difficulty building capable navy ?

 

[Elfwine]

Is good navy cheap enough that can be built by local pirates (Illyrians, Wukou) or they need considerable investment from government (Rome, Byzantine, China, France) ?? It seems weird that some people could built menacing navy easily (Caliphate Navy) while other people had difficulty building capable navy ?

From what I understand - a good navy is expensive, but pirates don't have to worry about paying people nearly as much as people who can't/won't/don't just steal what they want.

Not to mention the differences in sizes here - eighty ships is far from adequate for Byzantine naval needs (for example), but a pirate with eighty ships has a pretty large fleet as far as not needing to protect long coastlines and many places at once.

 

[Xenophonte]

And there are report of naval defeat so devastating that entire coastline open to invasion and it took years to rebuild navy. Some country also failed to rebuilt naval capabilities and had to rely on foreigners or ex-pirates (Byzantine dependence on Italian, China and Japan on dealing with wukou sea kings).

The most damaging thing it wasn't only the quite important financial or material resources that'd be needed to rebuild it a new, after a crushing defeat or even a continued stability, political will and ability to regather the resources for do it and the time that'd be needed for achieving it.
But the manpower, the losses of irreplaceable trained crews and naval commanders which would be the most damaging consequences of such crushing kind of naval disasters...

 

[Tanc49]

Yeah. There's nothing about "pirate" that makes them inevitably any more ragtailed than a professional navy, except relative resources - and successful pirates are not exactly lacking the means to get good ships and good crews.

And before cannons, a guy with a bow and a sword as no intrinsic advantage over another guy with a bow and a sword. No heavy capital investment is required

 

[Metempsychosis]

Is good navy cheap enough that can be built by local pirates (Illyrians, Wukou) or they need considerable investment from government (Rome, Byzantine, China, France) ?? It seems weird that some people could built menacing navy easily (Caliphate Navy) while other people had difficulty building capable navy ?

Like @Elfwine said, you don't have to pay pirates as much, considering their payment is in loot. It seems a similar situation to nomads vis a vis standing armies of "civilized societies".

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

Pirates don't need to be everywhere they just need to be where the navy isn't. Therefore the navy needs to be everywhere.

Pirates don't need to be numerous everywhere they just need to be numerous where the navy isn't. Therefore the navy needs to be numerous everywhere.

Pirates don't need to be numerous and well armed everywhere they just need to be numerous and well armed where the navy isn't. Therefore the navy needs to be numerous and well armed everywhere.

ect...

 

[Emperor Constantine]

I never quite understood what exactly made navies so expensive to maintain. I mean, I could get the high cost of building ships (cutting down the trees, producing the lumber, transporting said lumber, ex ex), but the rest? Was it just salaries or something?

 

[TRH]

I never quite understood what exactly made navies so expensive to maintain. I mean, I could get the high cost of building ships (cutting down the trees, producing the lumber, transporting said lumber, ex ex), but the rest? Was it just salaries or something?

Ships need maintenance as well, and the accompanying facilities for that. Also, turnover in crew is an issue. From what I remember reading, the two deadliest jobs for slaves in ancient Rome were mining and galley rowing.

 

[ClaustroPhoebic]

I think people are also at risk of misunderstanding what ancient piracy was. A lot of pirates in the ancient world were wealthy aristocrats with dedicated ships and crews. These weren’t just ragtag pirates and they certainly weren’t the largely poor mutineers we see in 17th Century piracy, piracy in the ancient world was a social and political institution in many societies. In fact, for a long time, piracy was a fundamental and important institution in most of Greece and remained so in some parts (such as Aetolia) until the Romans.

This is all to say that you should stop thinking of pirates as being like Blackbeard but as being military forces in their own right but with somewhat different priorities and approaches to those of conventional navies. They also didn’t follow the same rules as what we think pirates should; for much of Mediterranean history, being a pirate was a reasonably normal profession (it’s only from the 5th Century that it starts really being seen as a bad thing, at least in Greece) and it was very common for people to be both pirates and merchants. At least some scholars have suggested that piracy and trading shouldn’t be seen as two separate or opposed phenomena but as interlinked.

 

[SlyDessertFox]

Ships need maintenance as well, and the accompanying facilities for that. Also, turnover in crew is an issue. From what I remember reading, the two deadliest jobs for slaves in ancient Rome were mining and galley rowing.

Fwiw, galley slaves were not really a thing in ancient Rome and Greece. Using slaves as rowers was a kind of "break glass in case of emergency" thing that was rarely used. Rowers were most usually free men. Frankly, being an ancient mediterranean galley rower was probably a significantly better gig than being on an oceanic ship later in world history-you would be making much shorter trips while hugging the coast and stopping every couple of days to stock up on food and supplies.

At least some scholars have suggested that piracy and trading shouldn’t be seen as two separate or opposed phenomena but as interlinked.

This is also true for the Vikings. A Viking merchant one day could be a Viking raider the next.

 

[Bregil]

I think people are also at risk of misunderstanding what ancient piracy was. A lot of pirates in the ancient world were wealthy aristocrats with dedicated ships and crews. These weren’t just ragtag pirates and they certainly weren’t the largely poor mutineers we see in 17th Century piracy, piracy in the ancient world was a social and political institution in many societies. In fact, for a long time, piracy was a fundamental and important institution in most of Greece and remained so in some parts (such as Aetolia) until the Romans.

This is all to say that you should stop thinking of pirates as being like Blackbeard but as being military forces in their own right but with somewhat different priorities and approaches to those of conventional navies. They also didn’t follow the same rules as what we think pirates should; for much of Mediterranean history, being a pirate was a reasonably normal profession (it’s only from the 5th Century that it starts really being seen as a bad thing, at least in Greece) and it was very common for people to be both pirates and merchants. At least some scholars have suggested that piracy and trading shouldn’t be seen as two separate or opposed phenomena but as interlinked.

Excellent point, a lot of these "pirates" were actually unofficially sponsored by states that were nominally or fully under Roman overlordship. It was a bit of a win-win for all involved (except the traders and the Romans). The pirates got safe harbors and a ready source of recruits. The sponsors got a way to covertly hit back at the Romans, the economic benefits of successful raids bringing plunder back to their markets, the ability to wash their hands of any crews that the Romans might catch, and (perhaps most importantly) a release valve for those disgruntled young men who might otherwise cause issues that can't be so easily dismissed.

 

[Godot]

Oh yeah, 100%. Sextus Pompeius near single-handedly ordered the blockade of the entire Italian peninsula, making an ongoing famine all the more severe. For an inland sea like the Mediterranean, and with the Romans being such dismal sailors, pirates could have outsized impact on the operations of the Republic and Empire.

 

[ClaustroPhoebic]

Fwiw, galley slaves were not really a thing in ancient Rome and Greece. Using slaves as rowers was a kind of "break glass in case of emergency" thing that was rarely used. Rowers were most usually free men. Frankly, being an ancient mediterranean galley rower was probably a significantly better gig than being on an oceanic ship later in world history-you would be making much shorter trips while hugging the coast and stopping every couple of days to stock up on food and supplies.

This is also true for the Vikings. A Viking merchant one day could be a Viking raider the next.

It’s true for plenty of pre-modern maritime societies. In maritime Southeast Asia, piracy and trading went hand in hand and it was rather common for people to go between doing both. When the British arrived, they often had trouble distinguishing between the two because they had an expectation that piracy and trading were these two opposite things. The result was that a lot of traditional orang laut communities were wiped out as the British destroyed them in their ‘fight against piracy’.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

I never quite understood what exactly made navies so expensive to maintain. I mean, I could get the high cost of building ships (cutting down the trees, producing the lumber, transporting said lumber, ex ex), but the rest? Was it just salaries or something?

Ancient warships needed a big crew -- a trireme had a total complement of around 200 men, for example -- and since ancient fleets could number in the hundreds, all the supplies, pay, etc. needed for them really added up. (Fun fact: the Battle of Ecnomus in the First Punic War is possibly the largest naval battle in history, with around 290,000 men taking part.) I'm not sure what ships ancient pirates generally used, but if they employed sailing ships with fewer rowers, they could get away with having smaller crews, and hence maintain more ships cheaply.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Oh yeah, 100%. Sextus Pompeius near single-handedly ordered the blockade of the entire Italian peninsula, making an ongoing famine all the more severe. For an inland sea like the Mediterranean, and with the Romans being such dismal sailors, pirates could have outsized impact on the operations of the Republic and Empire.

To be fair, Sextus Pompey wasn't really a pirate, except perhaps in Triumviral propaganda. He was more a semi-independent warlord like Octavian and Anthony, but with more of a naval focus than his rivals.