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BANDITS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Great after his victory over the Cilician pirates, was awarded the corona
rostrata in recognition of his ‘Sicilian pirate’ victory. 37
Sextus Pompey and Mark Antony were the last ‘bandits’ of the collapsing
Republic. Before moving to examine the further evolution of the term ‘bandit’
in its application to political opponents during the Principate, I first wish to
take a look at foreign relations in the late Republic. This will allow us to see
how the usage of latro as a defamation of one’s political opponents, as it had
developed in polemical speeches of the Senate and the public assemblies,
came to be transferred to anti-Roman politicians of the Hellenistic world.
3 Local dynasts of the late-Hellenistic East as latrones
In a narrative that may be seen as typifying the Greek East at the time of the
Mithridatic wars, Strabo reports that numerous tyrants had seized power
in Cilicia, and that robber bands had appeared everywhere, and their suppression
continued down to his own day. 38 The Hellenistic monarchies had
disappeared or else were in decline, while Roman dominance had not yet
fully established itself. 39 At sea, piracy was in its heyday, able, under such
favourable circumstances, to develop into a military and quasi-political force. 40
On land, in particular in Asia Minor, areas subject to no external rule
appeared where local men of power seized the chance to set themselves up as
dynasts. 41 What follows is based on the observation that such self-styled
politicians figure very frequently in the Roman tradition as latrones or leistai.
Here, too, we find ourselves dealing not with authentic brigands, but with a
figurative use of the term: politicians who had aroused Rome’s displeasure
were depreciated as bandits.
My first example takes us into the 70s of the first century bc, when
P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus was, as proconsul, given command of the war
against the Cilician pirates. 42 Contemporary with this, a Cilician dynast
called Zeniketes was attracting attention. 43 He had set himself up near the
coast on Olympus (a mountain near modern Delik Tas), from where he was
able to oversee a much larger area, defined by natural features. 44 Strabo
characterises his main base as a peiraterion. Taken literally, the term implies
that Zeniketes maintained pirate vessels which exploited the disruption caused
by the Mithridatic wars to go a-plundering and, perhaps, also served
Mithridates for pay. There is no direct proof of this, but it is suggested by
the direct onslaught of Servilius Isauricus who probably decided to proceed
against Zeniketes with military force for this reason. When Roman troops
threatened to storm his mountain stronghold, Zeniketes and his followers
elected for collective suicide. It is interesting that this manner of death was
increasingly chosen by latrones; I will examine the phenomenon in more
detail below, in connection with the myth of Masada. 45 However, anticipating
the results of this discussion, I declare here my suspicion that the story
of the end of Zeniketes and his companions conveys no historical reality but
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