They called them robbers and pirates; and robbers and
pirates they must forever remain.
[Sidenote: Depredations of the Cilicians.]
And it is, in fact, very likely true that the Cilician commanders did
not pursue their conquests and commit their depredations on the rights
and the property of others in quite so systematic and methodical a
manner as some other conquering states have done. They probably seized
private property a little more unceremoniously than is customary; though
all belligerent nations, even in these Christian ages of the world, feel
at liberty to seize and confiscate private property when they find it
afloat at sea, while, by a strange inconsistency, they respect it on
the land. The Cilician pirates considered themselves at war with all
mankind, and, whatever merchandise they found passing from port to port
along the shores of the Mediterranean, they considered lawful spoil.
They intercepted the corn which was going from Sicily to Rome, and
filled their own granaries with it. They got rich merchandise from the
ships of Alexandria, which brought, sometimes, gold, and gems, and
costly fabrics from the East; and they obtained, often, large sums of
money by seizing men of distinction and wealth, who were continually
passing to and fro between Italy and Greece, and holding them for a
ransom.
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