. Before Chrift 67. 11^ 



can, and ftill rofe fuperior to every attack, till the Romans, who thought 

 themfelves entitled to the exclufive privilege of plundering the world, at 

 lad determined to exert their utmoft force againfl this formidable aflb- 

 ciation of enemies, or rivals. Pompey, whofe warlike atchievements 

 had already procured him a great name, was appointed to condudt the 

 war, and inverted with unlimited power to command all the kings and 

 ftates within 400 ftadia of the whole Mediterranean fhore ; and 120,000 

 foot, 5,000 horfe, and 500 fliips, with a treafury of 6,000 Attic talents, 

 were put under his command. The Rhodians alfo, a mercantile peo- 

 ple, and confequently no friends to freebooters, joined their forces with 

 the Romans. 



67 — Pompey diftributed his fleet in thirteen divifions, to each of which 

 he appointed a portion of the fea as a ftation. In confequence of this 

 difpofition the exiles were everywhere attacked at once, and had no 

 place of fafety to retire to. Pompey himfelf attacked them in their 

 head-quarters in Cilicia, beat the principal divifion of their forces in a 

 naval battle, and aflaulted the caflles, in which they had fhut themfelves 

 up. Having in a fhort time taken 400 * of their fliips, with 1 20 of 

 their towns, and (if it can be believed) not lofing a fmgle fliip of his 

 own, he put an end to the war. Then, in order to detach them from a 

 maritime life, and remove them from all temptation to refume their for- 

 mer occupation, he impofed upon them the terms which had been pre- 

 fcribed to the Carthaginians, and obliged them to occupy towns and lands 

 which he afligned to them at a diftance from the fea. 



The victory having put Pompey in polTeffion of the wealth accumu- 

 lated by the independent corfairs, he bellowed upon every one of his 

 foldiers a fum equal to ;^48 18:9 of our money f , and brought into 

 the public treafury ;Cr93?75°- Among the wonders of eaftern magni- 

 ficence carried in Pompey's triumphal proceflion, there was a mufeum 

 of pearls, on the top of which was a horologium, [P/in. Z,. xxxvii, c. 2.] 

 which appears, from the defcription of fuch inftruments by Vitruvius, 

 to have been merely a dial embelliflied by oriental ingenuity and opu- 

 lence. It was a Angularity in his triumph, that none of the captives 

 were put to death at it. 



The Romans being now mailers of the fovereignty of the fea without 

 a competitor, and having deftroyed almoft all the mercantile nations, 

 were under a neceflity to befl:ow at lead fo much attention upon com- 

 merce, as to provide for the importation of the articles, neceflary for the 

 confumption of their crowded metropolis, from their difl:ant provinces. 



* 846 according to Pliny. [_Hi/l. nat. L. vii, cc. 2j, 26.] 



f This funi, when compared with the price of food, the only real ftandard of the value of money, 

 xvas at leaft equal to /^ 1,500 at this time. 



Vol. I. P 



