Why Everyone Forgets Ancient Rome went to War Against Pirates | Toldinstone

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]But yeah, it was a massive problem.

[00:00:01]Yeah, this the Salissian pirates.

[00:00:02]>> Here we go. Salissian pirates dominated the Mediterranean Sea from the 2n century BC.

[00:00:09]>> Drug smugglers could have had a field day with that.

[00:00:11]>> They would have had a lot of fun with this.

[00:00:12]>> Was were there any like OG drug smugglers back then?

[00:00:15]>> Well, outright smugglers of all kinds of things, you know, cuz there are uh all kinds of like local customs barriers in the ancient world. Uh pirates are really, you know, kind of the OG smugglers in a lot of ways. Um and they also attack ships, but they're moving goods, too. They had pirates over there back then referred to as pirates.

[00:00:32]>> Oh yeah. Yeah. A gigantic gigantic problem for the Romans because >> real fast to are you familiar with Colin Woodard? Have you ever seen his work?

[00:00:41]>> The name is familiar. Right. Um >> so he was one of the main experts like the main expert on it's escaping me but the Netflix documentary about the golden era of pirates.

[00:00:51]>> That's Yes. Okay.

[00:00:52]>> Right. So I had him in here really >> like almost two years ago. Oh very cool.

[00:00:56]And I think I got it [ __ ] up in my head where I'll have to go roll the tape cuz I had food poisoning while we were recording that. So to remember all this unfortunate, but he was amazing. But you know, he got muscled through around here. But I was under the impression, like thinking back on it when I was thinking about this podcast a few weeks ago >> that like pirates themselves were kind of like that term and that idea was born in the Americas back then. But you're talking about it.

[00:01:24]>> Oh yeah. I mean, it's it's different in a lot of ways, but it's the same idea.

[00:01:27]You're attacking shipping and either ransoming people or stealing their stuff. And uh it became an epidemic in the uh the 1st century BC. So like, you know, the Romans conquer the Greek East, but they don't bother to uh replace the navies of these peoples that they attack in the Greek world. So all over the Aian and Eastern Mediterranean, there are huge pirate squadrons that attack whole cities. Um like uh there there's this famous sanctuary of Dos, for example.

[00:01:51]It's an island it's an island of the Aian. has a very big sanctuary of Apollo and they sack it because there are so many pirates that they they had to defend themselves against these people.

[00:01:59]Um they sack cities all over the eastern Mediterranean even in Italy too because there there are squatters with thousands of men um rolling in because the Romans don't have a navy to oppose them.

[00:02:08]>> Eventually Pompy, you know, Caesar's great opponent is deputized to attack the pirates to take care of this problem. And he sends squadrons across the whole Mediterranean Sea just kind of sweeping the coast going west to east um and destroys the pirate fleets. Whoa.

[00:02:22]>> Um, but yeah, it was a massive problem.

[00:02:24]Yeah, this the Sissyian pirates.

[00:02:26]>> Here we go. Cissian pirates dominated the Mediterranean Sea from the 2nd century BC >> until the suppression by Pompy in 67 to 66 BC because there were notorious pirate strongholds in Sicilia on the southern coast of Asia Minor, modern day Turkey. The term Sicilian, >> is that pronounced >> cissian?

[00:02:44]>> Right. I'm sorry. Cissian. Yeah, I was here. I'm like Sicilian. Yeah, different guys >> was long used to generically refer to any pirates in the Mediterranean.

[00:02:54]>> And fun fact, so he he he takes all their ships, burns their ships, doesn't kill them all. He actually settles them in cities um and what's now southeastern Turkey. He built them in cities. He does. There's a place called Pompeiopoulos um in like the what's now southeastern Turkey. I went there actually once and yeah, you know, as one does. And um yeah, that they actually like you know given gainful employment like all right pirates, this is like your work release.

[00:03:16]It's like the original Australia.

[00:03:18]>> It is. Exactly. You know, but because no one wants to live there. It was like a giant swamp. You know, they were to solely pump.

[00:03:24]>> So they're like just build a city for us.

[00:03:25]>> And you know, they probably build do the work to build a city. But yeah. Yeah. He just settled them there in their own community. You right now you have to go to work for a living.

[00:03:33]>> That's [ __ ] nuts, man.

[00:03:34]>> Yeah. So there we go. Work release. But uh yeah, so so fun stuff. Pirates are are ancient.

[00:03:40]>> But you know, you were talking about like the the boats that would bring something as large as an obelisk over.

[00:03:46]They had to use like, oh, let's let's get grain just to balance this out because you're dealing with very very old sea technology. Are the pirates operating on boats that are like a similar size or is it like the dinghy boat Somalian pirate kind of thing?

[00:03:59]>> It's probably a lot like the Somalian pirates in the beginning where it's like small squadrons of men who for out from the coast from coastal bases to attack ships that are because ships in the ancient world never want to sail right across the Mediterranean. Storms are too dangerous. They want to hug the coast whenever they can stay within sight of shore. So that means they're always targets for pirates who are based on shore waiting for ship to come into sight. They go out from their base and attack. Um so these guys were based in what's now southeastern Turkey and in Cissia went to their name. But um >> so they would never go straight across.

[00:04:29]>> Almost never. Sometimes they would.

[00:04:30]They'd have to in some cases, but it was preferred to stay close to shore. So if a storm comes up, you can get out of the harm's way.

[00:04:37]>> From a safety perspective, of course, that makes a minus the pirates. That makes a ton of sense. But like from a time perspective, >> it slows it down. Yeah. You're going >> It also helps that the the winds in the Mediterranean um at least in the east kind of blow in a way that if you're coming from Alexandria, if I remember correctly, it makes sense to go along the coast. They kind of go first first north and then west. Um so you kind of can hug the coast with the wind and then kind of follow the wind as it curls around the coast um off towards Italy if you're coming from Egypt, for example.

[00:05:04]>> Interesting.

[00:05:05]>> Then you're fighting it on the way back.

[00:05:06]But um so there are ways to use the wind patterns where it's not just a matter of safety though it's mostly a matter of safety. The ships are so small and so crude. Um but we were talking about the obelisk ships which are huge. Um the other giant ships are the grain barges.

[00:05:19]So they bring grain from Egypt. Um the ro you know Egypt Egyptian grain feeds Rome there. It comes from other places too. It comes from what's now Tunisia for example from Sicily.

[00:05:29]>> But yeah um >> you tell me the Egyptians invented pasta. Well, you know, they contributed to the wonderful mix that Okay, we're going to delete that.

[00:05:38]>> They did not invent pasta, though. But anyway, uh yeah, hardcore no, but um but no, so there was tons of grain in Egypt.

[00:05:45]It was very, you know, they had the Nile flood every year. Um so it's reliably fertile. They have huge yields from their crops and so they send um massive amounts of grain to Italy to Rome itself every year. And there's a a fleet of these huge barges, the oil tankers of the ancient world pretty much. um with you know dozens of ships and a giant fleet. You wouldn't attack that if you're a pirate. That's too many people.

[00:06:06]They'd have like outr rididers who would have like you know a defense defended ship.

[00:06:09]>> How many people we talking like hundreds?

[00:06:11]>> A single ship might have hundreds of people on it. Um you know these are really big ships.

[00:06:15]>> Oh Joe's got it. Is that what you're looking for? Maybe that first one that first show it says here like like St. Paul St. Paul was on a grain barge coming from Egypt. Um and I think there were hundreds of people on his ship. Uh the other other Josephus I think too was involved in a shipwreck in a very large ship. There were hundreds of people.

[00:06:34]>> Yeah. He's a a Jewish author of the first century um who wrote this famous work on Jewish antiquities and also on the Jewish war. Rome's Rome's the Roman Jewish war and he was involved in shipwreck too and has an account of it if I remember right.

[00:06:46]>> I might totally be mixing up things here but the Roman Jewish war.

[00:06:50]>> This is the one they burned the temple.

[00:06:51]This is in the 70s >> in Rome.

[00:06:53]>> No >> like in the ghettos. Well, I mean there there were synagogues in Rome, too. But no, this is the war they fought against uh this is a generation after Jesus.

[00:07:00]This is between 67 and 70 AD.

[00:07:03]>> Okay. So, this is down in the Holy Land you're talking about.

[00:07:05]>> Yes. Yes. In Judea.

[00:07:07]>> We're not localized guys.

[00:07:08]>> No. No. So, there was a revolt there.

[00:07:10]And uh this guy was one of the leaders, Josephus, but he survived the war. Um and he wrote an account of including I believe a shipwreck, which I hopefully not misremembering.

[00:07:18]>> So, he lived through a shipwreck.

[00:07:19]>> Lived through a shipwreck. Yeah.

[00:07:20]>> That's like kind of back then living through a plane crash.

[00:07:23]>> By no means a guarantee. Yeah, that was exactly that's probably a good analogy.

[00:07:27]>> Can we see that first image, Joe, where it shows the inside >> like a cutaway? Well, some of the the coolest ships we ever found from the ancient world. Um, >> so there were Caligula, you know, everyone's favorite deranged emperor.

[00:07:40]>> Yeah.

[00:07:40]>> Um, also an awful movie, by the way, in case you're ever tempted. But anyway, >> movie called Caligula.

[00:07:45]>> Caligula. Oh, yeah. It's the famous pornographic. So, it was uh the guy who runs Hustler magazine essentially was was in charge of making this movie basically and it shows.

[00:07:57]>> I'm shocked Joe doesn't know that.

[00:07:58]>> And it's one of these movies that could have been really really good. It's supposed to be like, you know, an X-rated look um at the depravity and debauchery of ancient Rome. How power corrupts. It just became really really bad porn. Really, really bad. Don't recommend. But uh anyway, >> 18% >> 18% of Rotten Tomatoes is not great.

[00:08:16]>> A little bit too high. I think the 18% that voted 18% was jerking off the whole time. So that doesn't even count.

[00:08:22]>> Yeah. I mean, you wouldn't even feel good. Anyway, so it's one of these things where Caligula um built these giant barges on Lake Nemi kind of near Rome, like the suburbs of Rome. And these barges were enormous. They're pleasure crew. They were yachts pretty much. And they probably have pictures of these things. They found them. These giant ships.

[00:08:40]>> Is this what you're looking for?

[00:08:42]>> Exactly. Um, and Mussolini decided he wanted to recover these ships that everyone knew they had sunk after Cula's rain. They were on the bottom of this lake. So, he drains the whole lake to recover these two giant ships. And they drag them out. They're these huge barges. They had um flowing hot water.

[00:08:57]They had like a boilers on the ship.

[00:08:59]They had marble floors. It was really a palace on under sail. Unfortunately, in World War II, um, so they haul these two ships out. They make a museum for them.

[00:09:08]Then it's burned down by the Germans after like eight like eight years after they took the ships out of the water.

[00:09:13]Um, so the museum is still there. You can see it. It's not too far from Rome, but it's this big empty museum with the holes the ships used to be and they feel like charred timbers that survive.

[00:09:21]>> Oh god. So we don't That's cool.

[00:09:23]>> So we don't have anymore, but there are pictures.

[00:09:26]>> Thank you guys for watching the episode.

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