. Rome : its rise and fall ; a text-book for high schools and colleges. , now turned pirates,had banded themselves together in a sort of had as places of refuge numerous strong fortresses —four hundred it is said — among the inaccessible mountainsof the coast lands they frequented. They had a fleet of athousand sails, with dockyards and naval arsenals. Theywere, in the words of Mommsen, no longer a gang ofrobbers who had flocked together, but a compact soldier-state in which the free-masonry of exile and crime took the place of This statemade treaties withthe Gre
. Rome : its rise and fall ; a text-book for high schools and colleges. , now turned pirates,had banded themselves together in a sort of had as places of refuge numerous strong fortresses —four hundred it is said — among the inaccessible mountainsof the coast lands they frequented. They had a fleet of athousand sails, with dockyards and naval arsenals. Theywere, in the words of Mommsen, no longer a gang ofrobbers who had flocked together, but a compact soldier-state in which the free-masonry of exile and crime took the place of This statemade treaties withthe Greek maritimecities, and formedleagues of friend-ship with the kingsand princes of theEast. The history ofthis pirate-state isas interesting as apirates tale. Itsswift ships, sailingin fleets and squad-rons, scoured the waters of the Mediterranean, so that nomerchantman could spread her sails in safety. Nor werethese buccaneers content with what spoils the sea mightyield them; like the vikings of the Northern seas in later8 Mommsen, History of Rome, vol. iv. p. Roman Trading Vessel. THE PERIOD OF THE REVOLUTION. 2J7 times, they made descents upon every coast, plunderedvillas and towns, and sweeping of! the inhabitants sold themopenly as slaves in the slave markets of the East. Theyrobbed the venerated temple of Delos, and carried off allthe inhabitants of the sacred island into slavery. Theyexacted from many cities an annual tribute as the price ofimmunity from their visits. In some regions the inhabit-ants, as in early times, were compelled to remove for safetyfrom the coast and rebuild their homes farther inland. The pirates even ravaged the shores of Italy itself. Theydestroyed a Roman fleet lying in the harbor of Ostia. Theycarried off merchants and travellers from the Appian Way,among them two praetors with their magisterial fasces, andheld them for ransom. At last they began to intercept thegrain ships of Sicily and Africa, and thereby threatenedRome with starvatio
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