Caesar and The Pirates: or How to Make (and Break) an Ancient Life

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 specific 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 specifies that the ransom that freed Caesar came from the (nearby) city of Miletus. And while Suetonius writes that Caesar, after his release, launched a fleet, pursued the pirates, and punished them, Plutarch includes another phase in the story: having taken command of a fleet 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’. When Iuncus postponed a decision on the matter (evidently hoping to make a profit out of the situation), Caesar returned to Pergamum, took the robbers out of prison, and only then crucified them himself.