Crete and Piracy

There was one blot on the impressive record of conquest and consolidation in the East enjoyed down to 70: the Cretan campaign of M. Antonius, son of the commander sent against the pirates in 102 and father of the triumvir.^[49] And yet its failure should not obscure the importance of the fact that despite Rome's heavy commitments in Macedonia, Asia Minor, Spain, and Italy itself after the outbreak of the Spartacus revolt, yet another major military effort in the East was undertaken. The "Sullan oligarchy" was hardly lacking in vigor.

Antonius was given in 74 a novel type of command against the pirates, whose spread throughout the Mediterranean now required an imperium that was not territorially restricted to any of the traditional provinciae (such as Cilicia, his father's province); hence it could be called, perhaps

invidiously, an imperium infinitum .^[50] It is unclear how far we should take Velleius's vague statement that Antonius's imperium was like Pompey's later under the lex Gabinia (2.31.3). Like Pompey's command, it covered the entire Mediterranean, but we should probably not take Velleius's reference so literally as to conclude that, as (probably) was Pompey, Antonius was expressly given superior (maius ) imperium to that of provincial commanders in the coastal regions; such an extraordinary grant by the Senate without some opposition seems highly implausible.^[51] Even so, Antonius's command was a striking novelty, and an important step by the Senate toward controlling the pirate epidemic.

As we have seen, the Roman Senate and its commanders had traditionally given only sporadic attention to the problem of piracy in Eastern waters, despite the brave words of the law of ca. 100 inscribed in various coastal cities and on the monument of L. Aemilius Paulus at Delphi.^[52] Since the expedition of M. Antonius the Elder against the Cilician pirates in 102, they had more recently received attention from L. Murena and his lieutenant A. Terentius Varro and even, only a few years past, from a consular army and fleet under P. Servilius Vatia.^[53] Still the Senate shrank from committing resources sufficient to solve the problem. Doubtless Roman commanders in Asia Minor were constantly called upon to make do with half-measures, as, for example, the governor of Asia in 80-79, C. Claudius Nero, who ordered up from Poemaneum a dubious guard of ephebes for the protection of exposed Ilium.^[54] Greek inscriptions indeed leave us in some doubt as to whether Roman-directed efforts achieved more than those undertaken on Greeks' own initiative. The Ephesians received timely help from the Astypalaeans in one incident ca. 100; there is no mention of Rome. An inscription to be dated roughly to this period commemorates

a noteworthy Athenian campaign off Cilicia against the pirates, for which the demos received the gratitude of a series of communities, including the Lycian confederation, Phaselis, and Cythnos; we should not, in view of Rome's record, assume without evidence that the expedition was undertaken on Roman orders or carried out under Roman command.^[55] Another series of texts of this time commemorates a Lycian expedition led on land and sea by one Aechmon against the pirates. There is no reference to Romans.^[56] On the face of it, the epigraphic record suggests that local powers of the Aegean did not simply wait for Roman direction in seeing to their security against the pirates.

The record of the Roman Senate against Eastern piracy is one of abiding indifference only rarely punctuated by significant responses. The younger Antonius's mission in 74 is an institutional novelty in the extent of the command given the praetor, therefore implying that the Senate had awakened to the need to take unprecedented steps. But it would be hasty to assume that the Senate was overly concerned about piracy specifically in Eastern waters. For all the difficulties that piracy may have caused in the East during this period, what precipitated this extraordinary mission was rather the spread of rampant piracy to the West and the consequent interruption of Rome's grain supply, a problem that became acute precisely in 75.^[57] And indeed Antonius's first moves (as Pompey's later) were made in the West and were surely intended to dear the major Roman grain routes in Western waters.^[58] Yet after a year or two of operations in the Western seas, Antonius's efforts focused on Crete, an objective that was

probably anticipated from the beginning. (Some textual support, for what it is worth, comes from Lactantius, who believes that Antonius's mission was "to pursue the pirates and secure the entire sea," Div. inst . 1.11.32.) Already in 73-72 Antonius's legates were mustering supplies and troops in and from the coastal towns of the Peloponnese.^[59] Antonius was afterwards blamed for having attacked Crete merely out of lust for conquest (Flor. 1.42.1). This looks like the usual moralistic scapegoating of failed commanders. Crete could not be ignored by anyone charged with the job of checking piracy in the Mediterranean, for the recent troubles had shown how closely linked the maritime security of the West was to that of the East. Antonius formally complained to the Cretans that they favored Mithridates and supplied him with mercenaries against Rome, and that they had supported and provided safe haven for the pirates, perhaps out of favor for Mithridates.^[60] These charges are not likely to have been entirely fabricated. Cretan pirates in fact took second place in notoriety only to their Cilician neighbors;^[61] Crete was indeed the richest source of mercenaries in the Hellenistic world (hired by, among other employers, the Romans themselves),^[62] and, according to Memnon, who, however, has an axe to grind here, Mithridates had actually sent some forty or so ships to Crete early in the war, which were defeated by Lucullus's legate Triarius on their return trip in 71.^[63]

The concentration of Roman attention against Crete in the later 70s needs also to be set against the background of a sudden revival of interest

in Cyrenaica. Cyrene had been left to the Roman people by the testament of its former king, Apion, as far back as 96; yet it was not until 75 that Cyrene was assigned as a provincia , probably in response to a revival of Ptolemaic claims on the traditionally Lagid territory and to the suddenly pressing question of Rome's grain supply.^[64] One of the great cereal-growing regions of the Mediterranean could supplement the city's stores, but only if the route the grain would travel from Cyrene, across the Mediterranean to the Peloponnese before turning west, could be made secure from piratical attack.^[65] Antonius's Cretan campaign was likely therefore also in part a consequence of the decision in 75 to act on the will of Apion and exploit Rome's old rights in Cyrene. It was not solicitude for Greek welfare, still plagued after all by Cilician pirates, or a high conception of imperial duty that brought M. Antonius east, but the demands of the center of consumption at Rome, which even the post-Sullan Senate could not ignore.

Two inscriptions from coastal Peloponnese connected with Antonius's preparations for the Cretan campaign illustrate how onerous a task it was, not merely for Rome but also for the Greek cities, to organize a major naval campaign against the pirates: the texts document severe exactions of soldiers, grain, cloaks, and money among other things, as well as Antonius's quartering of troops upon the cities.^[66] The campaign was notorious even in Rome for the burdens it laid upon the allies: some claimed that Antonius was a remedy more harmful than the disease.^[67] Gytheum, we know from one inscription, had to borrow the better part of a talent from Roman financiers to meet the demands made of it^[68] —sobering evidence that even modest exactions might be beyond the capacity of local reserves—and in Epidaurus the introduction of a garrison and its presence over an extended period of time caused a severe shortage of grain, no doubt exacerbated by the requisitions of grain taking place elsewhere.^[69]

Piratical operations out of Cretan harbors were probably beyond the capacity of the island's cities to control, even had they wanted to do so, and when the Cretan response to Antonius's complaints was found to be insolent, the Roman commander made war upon them. The campaign did not go well. Antonius, with significant naval assistance from Byzantium, suffered a heavy defeat against the Cretan Lastbenes, who captured his quaestor. A truce was patched up that Antonius was pleased to present as a victory before he succumbed to illness.^[70] The Senate was less easily satisfied: rather than exploiting the opportunity to cut back its Eastern commitments, by August of 70 the renewal of war against Crete was being actively contemplated, and Crete may well have been decreed as a consular province for 69 in accordance with the lex Sempronia .^[71] The Cretans in alarm responded by sending an embassy of thirty of their most eminent men to try to avert conflict and to restore past friendly relations.^[72] Meanwhile, Creta provincia was assigned to the new consul Q. Caecilius Metellus, for Q. Hortensius, who had received it by lot on 1 January, had chosen to remain in Italy and relinquished the province to his colleague; Metellus was to proceed to Crete to accept its surrender and make war against the recalcitrant.^[73]

The Cretan envoys, who evidently knew well how things were done in Rome, went about their business very effectively, first making the rounds of salutations at the homes of the leading senators and making personal appeals. So vigorously did they press their case that it was found necessary to ban by senatorial decree loans of money to them which were being used to finance bribes. They were finally brought into the Senate auspiciously, probably only in February of 69, the month when foreign embassies were

usually heard at this time.^[74] The groundwork the Cretan envoys had laid at first paid off, for, reminded by the envoys of the Cretans' past services to the imperium , the Senate voted to absolve them of the allegations against them and restore to them the title of "friends and allies," presumably on the terms settled with Antonius.^[75] It may be that with the (temporary) easing of the grain shortage in Rome in the later 70s the magnitude of the task of eradicating Cretan piracy had come to seem rather daunting in comparison to the benefits it might bring.^[76] The wars in Macedonia were over, that in Asia Minor apparently so: a commission of ten was soon to travel east to advise Lucullus on arrangements for a lasting peace. The imperium populi Romani , whose prestige had suffered much in the 80s, was fully restored where it most counted, thanks to the efforts of no less than eight consuls and two consular armies in constant, simultaneous operation since 77; the pleas of the Cretan envoys despite their victory showed that little damage had been done even by Antonius's failure. It might have been an appropriate time to call a halt to Rome's greatest and most extended military effort in Eastern parts and celebrate the victories of the past decade. But at this juncture P. Cornelius Lentulus Spinther, the future consul of 57, "invalidated" the decree, most probably by a tribunician veto—perhaps the first important use of the restored power of the tribunate.^[77] We are not informed as to whether Spinther's veto implies popular impatience with senatorial inaction toward Crete perhaps exacerbated by continued discontent over the grain supply or merely partisanship in Metellus's favor. In any case, the Cretans returned home without accomplishing anything, and they and their policy were immediately discredited when an ultimatum arrived from Rome demanding the delivery of 300 hostages as well as the victor over Antonius, Lasthenes, and another chief named Panares; 4,000 talents in indemnities; all pirate ships (how

these would be distinguished was doubtless left unclear); and the return of all Roman captives (presumably by now sold as slaves, for the most part). The attempt to appease Rome had failed miserably, and Lasthenes and his supporters were now able to persuade the Cretan people to fight for their traditional freedom.^[78] The Roman demands went unanswered; finally, probably only early in 68, Metellus began operations against Crete with a force of three legions and quickly blockaded Lasthenes and Panares in Cydonia.^[79] As during Antonius's campaign, the war on Crete impinged on the Greeks of the mainland: Metellus's legate L. Valerius Flaccus was active in Athens, Sparta, Achaea, Boeotia, and Thessaly.^[80]

There we must leave him for now, noting that despite opposition within the Senate yet another consular army was now committed to a new theater of operations in the East. The hesitancy of the Senate is, however, significant and may reflect a still limited view of Roman Eastern commitments. The restoration of security in Macedonia and Greece had justified a series of vigorous, offensive campaigns; the threat of Mithridates had required an unparalleled military buildup in Asia Minor. These efforts had by 70 met with great success: the imperium had been powerfully reasserted. It appears that a senatorial majority was ready to declare victory and turn back from the offensive against piracy begun in 74. As a body the Senate was even now not ready to commit the necessary resources to a determined effort to dear the Libyan and Aegean seas of the pirates if a face-saving peace settlement could be arranged with the troublesome Cretans. But Spinther's veto of the settlement presages the laws of the tribunes Gabinius and Manilius in 67 and 66 urging novel and dramatic solutions to the remaining problems of the imperium .