Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/219

 and Italy. Hence it was that, when the Corinthian people joined the Achæan League, for the preservation of the independence of Greece, the Romans found an excuse for the capture, though not for the plunder and destruction of Corinth.

By the burning of these two great towns, instigated as these acts doubtless were, in no small degree, by a lust for plunder, the Romans not merely lost, for a time, the advantages they might have derived from a continuation of the trade hitherto successfully conducted by the Carthaginian and Corinthian merchants and shipowners, but drove those of the latter class, who had saved their property, and who had no other means of subsistence, to join Mithradates, and to convert their ships, as circumstances allowed or encouraged, into ships of war, privateers, or pirates. Persons of rank and capital then embarked to an extent previously unknown in marauding expeditions, with the object either of personal gain, or of the destruction of the maritime commerce of Rome. The organization of this confederacy was of the most formidable character. They erected forts, watch-towers, arsenals, and magazines; and from Cilicia, their citadel in chief, their squadrons swept the seas. Hence their historical name of the Cilician pirates. Every merchant ship that ventured forth became either their prize or their prey. Commerce was seriously interrupted; and the citizens of Rome lost their usual supplies of corn. The piratical ships increased in numbers and in daring; they infested the coasts of Italy, plundered the temples, and even ascended the Tiber in search of spoil. At length Pompey put an end to their power, by a brilliant victory at