It was the year 75 BC. In those days the Aegean Sea (the stretch of water between Greece and Turkey) was more than water and waves. It was a lawless open-air school where Cilician pirates (from the southern coast of present-day Turkey) taught everyone their lessons in fear. These were no skulking common thieves. They were the uncrowned kings of the sea. Their terror was such that even the ships of mighty empires would change course at the mere mention of their name. Kidnapping, plunder and ransom had become their hereditary trade. One fine day, a 25-year-old Roman youth fell into their clutches. He was strikingly handsome, plainly wealthy from his clothes, and his eyes burned with arrogant self-assurance. That young man was none other than Julius Caesar himself.
Usually, when the pirates took a captive, he wept and begged for his life. They expected this new prisoner to clasp their feet and plead for mercy as well. The pirates looked him up and down and reckoned that this fellow was worth quite a lot. Drawing on their business experience, they informed Caesar that his ransom would be set at 20 talents of silver. In that age, 20 talents of silver was enough to buy a small town outright. But instead of trembling at the news, Caesar threw back his head and roared with laughter.
The pirates stared at one another in astonishment. Nothing like this had ever happened in their professional lives. Had the man gone mad? Caesar stopped laughing and told them, with utter disdain, that they were evidently ignorant of who he was and of the honour due him. Only 20 talents? Was he some common merchant or petty landlord, that his worth should be priced so cheaply? He considered it a grave insult to his social standing. He insisted that the pirates demand at least 50 talents (roughly 165 to 250 crore rupees in today's money).
In the history of kidnapping, this was perhaps the first and last time a captive raised his own price and felt insulted unless more money was demanded. The pirates were bewildered, yet the businessman within each of them was delighted. If someone is offering you more money for nothing, refusing it would be sheer foolishness. They agreed at once, and Caesar sent his men off to raise 50 talents of silver.
Now began a long wait. For about 38 days Caesar stayed on that ship with the fearsome pirates. But the scene during those 38 days was something else entirely. Whether he was the captive or the pirates had become his salaried staff was impossible for an outside observer to tell. Caesar strolled about the ship as freely as if he had come to holiday on his own private pleasure yacht. Whenever he felt like resting, he ordered all the pirates to keep quiet. And the amazing thing is that those fierce, bloodthirsty monsters of the sea actually whispered among themselves so that their prisoner's sleep would not be disturbed.
But Caesar was not a man to waste his precious time merely eating and sleeping. He was a first-rate orator and a lover of literature. To pass the time, he began writing long poems and speeches. But poems need an audience! Where would listeners come from in the middle of the sea? So the hapless pirates had to serve as the audience. Caesar sat them down together and recited his freshly composed poems and solemn speeches to them. Poor pirates, who had nothing to do with literature: how were they to grasp the depths of Roman politics and philosophy? Their faces showed no reaction, and they could not properly appreciate the literature. This irritated Caesar greatly. He would berate these fierce plunderers, lamenting that they were uneducated, uncivilised barbarians. The pirates took his scolding lightly. They thought the boy was a bit whimsical and somewhat unstable in the head, but since he was a huge capital asset worth 50 talents, putting up with all his mischief was the sensible thing to do.
During this captivity, Caesar kept telling them a terrible truth in a jesting manner. Quite naturally and with complete confidence, he said that as soon as his ransom arrived and he was free, he would come straight back and have them all crucified. The pirates laughed when they heard this. They took it for another amusing poem, or a line of dialogue from one of the young man's plays. An unarmed prisoner, alive only at their mercy, sitting on their ship and threatening to kill them: what greater farce could there be?
At last, after the long 38-day wait, the happy day arrived. Caesar's representatives turned up with the enormous treasure of 50 talents of silver. The pirates were beside themselves with joy at receiving so much silver. As agreed, they released Caesar at once and went off to celebrate their commercial triumph. They assumed the story ended there.
But the moment Caesar was free, he set out straight away. Instead of resting, he immediately began gathering ships and soldiers. His personality and gift for leadership were so compelling that within a short time he had assembled a small fleet, and without wasting a moment he sailed for the very place where the pirates had held him. The pirates, meanwhile, were still there, drinking and making merry.
Suddenly the pirates saw their old prisoner (Julius Caesar) standing before them with a fleet. Without giving them any chance to fight, Caesar took them all captive, and recovered the entire 50 talents of ransom, counted down to the last coin.
Now the time had come to keep his promise. According to the ancient historian Plutarch, Caesar respected legal procedure and took all the captured pirates to the governor of the region. But the governor dithered. Seeing this, Caesar decided to become the judge himself. Honouring the promise he had made in captivity, he ordered that all the pirates be crucified.
Here, though, we get a glimpse of a most "merciful" side of Caesar's character. He reasoned that since these pirates had treated him quite well for 38 days and had listened to his poems quietly and without complaint, it was his duty to show them a little kindness. Ordinarily, a man hung on a cross writhes in agony and dies only after suffering for a long time. So, to display his great compassion, Caesar ordered that before being crucified, all the pirates should first have their throats cut. That way they would die instantly and would not have to endure long torment on the cross. Ah, what matchless kindness! Truly, it is a stroke of luck to find an enemy so merciful. Once their throats were cut, the pirates' corpses were taken and hung, in peace, upon the crosses.
After hearing this thrilling and unbelievable story, any person of sound mind would surely think it a grandmother's tale, or the overblown screenplay of some modern film. A 25-year-old unarmed youth, himself a prisoner, raises his own price and torments his kidnappers by reciting poetry! Is that really believable? How do we even know about an event so old, and what is the proof? The truth is that when an ordinary man slips and falls in the road, no one asks after him. But when that same man one day becomes master of a vast territory, historians begin keeping account of even his childhood coughs and sneezes. This particular story, too, has been rescued from the pages of ancient books, and it cannot be dismissed as an idle yarn.
The most colourful and detailed account of this incident comes to us from the ancient Greek historian Plutarch. In his famous Parallel Lives, Plutarch describes with great relish how Caesar raised his ransom from twenty talents to fifty. It is Plutarch, too, who records best that brazen threat to crucify the pirates, and how Caesar tortured those uneducated men by reciting poetry to them day and night. But who would believe the word of a single historian? Well, another distinguished Roman historian, Suetonius, also confirms this kidnapping drama in his popular book The Twelve Caesars. Suetonius specifically highlights that so-called "mercy," the throat-cutting before crucifixion. As if cutting their throats were a great favour, for which the pirates ought to have thanked Julius Caesar! Besides these two eminent men, yet another historian, Velleius Paterculus, has included the incident in his Roman History. In other words, we have written testimony from three ancient scholars, and it makes clear that this madness really happened. It was no hymn in praise of a god, but a true portrait of an arrogant and fearless young man. The incident shows that the man who would one day make the whole Roman world dance on his fingertips already had his arrogance and his intoxication with leadership sky-high, at a time when he did not even have a sword at his waist! Truly, if you are ever going to be taken captive, do it in such style that your kidnapper becomes confused about whether he has captured you or is working for you.
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