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84 was passed. Pompey was then unanimously appointed to this great charge, and the Senate was directed to give him all assistance in detail, an instruction which the Nobles did not now venture to disregard.

The public confidence in Pompey was marked by an immediate relief in the corn-market, where famine prices had been ruling, and this confidence was abundantly justified by the result. Pompey made his preparations instantly for a systematic campaign. Personally and by aid of the fifteen lieutenants whose services he commanded, he swept the Mediterranean from west to east, and drove back the pirates into their Cilician harbours where he soon compelled their surrender. Before the end of summer his task was accomplished, and the seas were open. His triumph was due partly to the overwhelming force which he displayed at every point, partly to the mildness and clemency with which received submission. Many of the freebooters were glad to abandon resistance and to accept pardon from Pompey's hands. He planted thousands of them in Cilician colonies, and granted them lands that they might not be driven by poverty to resume their old trade. The anxiety of the Cretans to make their submission to Pompey, rather than to Metellus, the proconsul of the island, nearly brought on an armed collision between the two generals.

In an age when, as Cicero says, "the Roman soldiers had destroyed more cities of their allies, which