Caesar and the Pirates: Or How to Make (And Break) an Ancient Life’, Greece and Rome, 57(2), Pp
Georgetown University Institutional Repository http://www.library.georgetown.edu/digitalgeorgetown The author made this article openly available online. Please tell us how this access affects you. Your story matters. OSGOOD, J. (2010) ‘Caesar and The Pirates: or How to Make (and Break) an Ancient Life’, Greece and Rome, 57(2), pp. 319–336. doi: 10.1017/S0017383510000057 Collection Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/10822/555438 © 2010 The Classical Association This material is made available online with the permission of the author, and in accordance with publisher policies. No further reproduction or distribution of this copy is permitted by electronic transmission or any other means. Greece & Rome, Vol. 57, No. 2, © The Classical Association, 2010. All rights reserved doi:10.1017/S0017383510000057 CAESAR AND THE PIRATES CAESAR AND THE PIRATES: OR HOW TO MAKE (AND BREAK) AN ANCIENT LIFE* Introduction It is hard for biographers, ancient and modern alike, to resist the story of the young Julius Caesar’s kidnapping by a band of pirates. Suetonius and Plutarch both include full versions of the tale, with specifi c details (Suet. Iul. 4; Plut. Vit. Caes. 1.4–2). Suetonius, for instance, writes that the kidnapping took place near the island of Pharmacusa (just off the coast of Asia Minor), while Plutarch, noting that too, also specifi es that the ransom that freed Caesar came from the (nearby) city of Miletus. And while Suetonius writes that Caesar, after his release, launched a fl eet, pursued the pirates, and punished them, Plutarch includes another phase in the story: having taken command of a fl eet and set sail (again, from Miletus), Plutarch’s Caesar captured nearly all the pirates but, instead of killing them right away, ‘he himself went to Iuncus, the governor of Asia, on the grounds that it belonged to him, as governor of the province, to punish the captives’.
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