Of course there were pirates in these early times in waters other than the Mediterranean. On the west coast of Gaul the Veneti had become very powerful pirates, and you will recollect how severely they tried Cæsar, giving him more trouble than all the rest of Gaul put together. They owned such stalwart ships and were such able seamen that they proved most able enemies. During the time of the Roman Empire piracy continued also on the Black Sea and North Sea, though the Mediterranean was now for the most part safe for merchant ships. But when the power of Rome declined, so proportionately did the pirates reappear in their new strength. There was no fearful navy to oppose them, and so once more they were able to do pretty much as they liked. But we must not forget that long before this they had ceased to be regarded as the equivalent of hunters and fishermen. They were, by common agreement, what Cicero had designated “enemies of the human race”: and so they continued till the nineteenth century, with only temporary intervals of inactivity.
The thousand ships which the Cilician pirates employed were disposed in separate squadrons. In different places they had their own naval magazines located, and during that period already mentioned, when they were driven off the sea, they resisted capture by retreating ashore to their mountain fastnesses until such time as it was safe for them to renew their ventures afloat. When Pompey defeated them he had under him a fleet of 270 ships. As the inscription, carried in the celebration of his triumph on his return to Rome, narrated, he cleared the maritime coasts of pirates and restored the dominion of the sea to the Roman people. But the pirates could always boast of having captured two Roman prætors, and Julius Cæsar, when a youth on his way to Rhodes to pursue his studies, also fell into their hands. However, he was more lucky than many another Roman who, when captured, was hung up to the yard-arm, and the pirate ship went proudly on her way.
In the declining years of the Roman Empire the Goths came down from the north to the Mediterranean, where they got together fleets, became very powerful and crossed to Africa, made piratical raids on the coast and carried on long wars with the Romans. Presently the Saxons in the northern waters of Europe made piratical descents on to the coasts of France, Flanders and Britain. Meanwhile, in the south, the Saracens descended upon Cyprus and Rhodes, which they took, seized many islands in the Archipelago, and thence proceeded to Sicily to capture Syracuse, and finally overran the whole of Barbary from Egypt in the east to the Straits of Gibraltar in the west. From there they crossed to Spain and reduced the greater part thereof, until under Ferdinand and Isabella these Moors were driven out of Spain and compelled to settle once more on the north coast of Africa. They established themselves notably at Algiers, took to the sea, built themselves galleys and, after living a civilised life in Spain for seven hundred years, became for the next three centuries a scourge of the Mediterranean, a terror to ships and men, inflicted all the cruelties which the fanaticism of the Moslem race is capable of, and cast thousands of Christians into the bonds of slavery. In many ways these terrifying Moorish pirates—of which to this day some still go afloat in their craft off the north coast of Africa—became the successors of those Cilician and other corsairs of the classical age. In due course we shall return to note the kind of piratical warfare which these expatriated Moors waged for most of three hundred years. But before we come to that period let us examine into an epoch that preceded this.