latrones - Get a Free Blog

BANDITS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
following the conquest of the country, he should immediately establish cities there
in order to be able to give a home to the numerous desperadoes. A later attempt at
a settlement policy in Isauria under Probus: HA Prob. 16.6. Forced resettlement of
Illyrian pirates in the hinterland: Strab. 7.5.6 p. 315.
70 Cassius Dio, 52.27.4f., has Maecenas suggest that the emperor should draft the
hardiest youths and those in need of a livelihood, for this would mean that no one
would be forced to earn his living as a brigand. HA Marc. 21.7: latrones etiam
Dalmatiae atque Dardaniae milites fecit; see A. Mócsy, ‘Latrones Dardaniae’, AAntHung
16, 1968, 351–4, and below, p. 125. HA Prob. 16.6: veteranis omnia illa quae
anguste adeuntur loca privata donavit, addens ut eorum filii ab anno octavo decimo, mares
dumtaxat, ad militiam mitterentur, ne latrocinare umquam discerent; see Minor, Brigand
85. Anon. De reb. bell. 2.3; see van Hooff, ‘Ancient Robbers’ 122. Hopwood,
‘Consent’ (as n. 63), 196, also thinks that the three Isaurian legions raised under
Diocletian (Not. dign. Or. 7.56) were made up for the most part of men from
brigands’ nests.
71 Leistes can, independently of the date of the source, denote a bandit, a highwayman
or a pirate. Peirates, as a particular term for a pirate, first occurs in writings of the
Hellenistic period; cf. H.G. Liddell, R. Scott, H.St. Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon 9 ,
Oxford 1940, repr. 1977, 1046 s.v. leistes; 1355 s.v. peirates. For the terminology see
also Y. Garlan, Guerre et économie en Grèce ancienne, Paris 1989, 177f. On Greek
piracy see H.A. Ormerod, Piracy in the Ancient World. An Essay in Mediterranean
History, Liverpool 1924, repr. 1978. E. Ziebarth, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Seeraubs
und Seehandels im alten Griechenland, Hamburg 1929. A.H. Jackson, ‘Plundering in
War and other Depredations in Greek History from 800 bc to 146 bc’, Univ. of
Cambridge Ph.D. thesis 1969. Y. Garlan, ‘Signification historique de la piratérie
grecque’, DHA 4, 1978, 1–16. W. Nowag, Raub und Beute in der archaischen Zeit
der Griechen, Frankfurt 1983. H. Kaletsch, ‘Seeraub und Seeräubergeschichten
des Altertums. 2000 Jahre antiker Seefahrt und Piraterie zwischen Adria und
Ostmittelmeer’, in Studien zur Alten Geschichte. Festschrift S. Lauffer, Bd. II, Rome
1986, 471–500.
72 Cf. Ormerod, Piracy (n. 71), 248–70. M. Reddé, Mare nostrum. Les infrastructures,
le dispositif et l’histoire de la marine militaire sous l’empire romain, Paris 1986, 326–9;
570–4. D. Braund, ‘Piracy under the principate and the ideology of imperial
eradication’, in J. Rich, G. Shipley, eds, War and Society in the Roman World, London
1993, 195–212.
73 Cic. Flacc. 28f.; 31; 33; cf. Leg. agr. 2.81.
74 Dio 39.56.1; 56.5; 59.2.
75 Cic. Att. 16.1.3: Dymaeos agro pulsos mare infestum habere nil mirum. Dyme was one of
the pirate colonies founded by Pompey. It appears that, as a centre of Pompeian
patronage, the settlement was dissolved by Caesar, cf. Pohl, Piraterie 164.
76 App. Ill. 16.47.
77 Dio 55.28.2.
78 Tac. Ann. 12.55.
79 Jos. Bell. Iud. 3.9.2 (416).
80 Tac. Hist. 3.47–48; cf. below pp. 150–1.
81 Tac. Hist. 3.47.3; for the camarae mentioned here cf. also Strab. 11.2.12 p. 495/6.
82 Periplus maris Erythr. 20 p. 62 Casson. Cf. A. Villiers, ‘Sailing with the Arabs’,
Mariners Mirror 47, 1961, 242–55.
83 So an epigram of Nicarchus, Anth. Gr. 11.162 (c. ad 80).
84 Anth. Gr. 5.44.
85 Paus. 10.34.5. HA Marc. 22.1f.; HA Sept. Sev. 2.3f. CIL VI 31856 = ILS 1327. A.
v. Premerstein, ‘Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Kaisers Marcus II: Seezüge der
Nordpontusvölker und der Mauren. Der Einfall der Kostoboken’, Klio 12, 1912,
176