The war with Mithridates employed the attention and the resources of the Romans so completely, that the pirates again infested the Mediterranean seas without control.  Their numbers and force were greatly augmented by the destruction of Carthage and Corinth; for the inhabitants of these cities, having neither a place of retreat, nor the means of subsistence, naturally turned their thoughts to piracy, having been accustomed to sea affairs, and to commerce.  In this they were encouraged by Mithridates, and assisted by some persons of considerable rank and wealth.  The inability of the Romans to attend to them, and the success and encouragement they obtained, induced them to conduct their piracies on a regular, systematic, and extensive plan.  Their ships were constantly at sea:  all commerce was interrupted; with their 1000 galleys—­for so numerous were they—­they exercised a complete sovereignty over all the coasts of the Mediterranean.  They formed themselves into a kind of commonwealth, selected magistrates and officers, who appointed each fleet its respective station and object, and built watch-towers, arsenals, and magazines.  They depended chiefly on Cilicia for the necessary supplies for their fleets.  Emboldened by their success, and by the occupation afforded to the Romans by Mithridates, they ravaged the whole line of the Italian coast; sacked the towns and temples, from which they expected a considerable booty; plundered the country seats on the sea-shore; carried off the inhabitants for slaves; blocked up all the ports of the republic; ventured as far as the entrance of the Tiber; sunk part of the Roman fleet at Ostia, and even threatened Rome itself, which they more than once deprived of its ordinary and necessary subsistence.  The scarcity of provisions was, indeed, not confined to Rome; but no vessel venturing to sea in the Mediterranean without being captured, it extended to those parts of Asia and Africa which lie on that sea.  Their inveteracy, however, was principally directed against the Roman commerce, and the Romans themselves.  If any of their captives declared himself to be a Roman, they threw themselves in derision at his feet, begging his pardon, and imploring his protection; but after they had insolently sported with their prisoner, they often dressed him in a toga, and then, casting out a ship’s ladder, desired him to return home, and wished him a good journey.  If he refused to leap into the sea, they threw him overboard, saying, “that they would not by any means keep a free-born Roman in captivity!”

In order to root out this dreadful evil, Gabinius, the tribune of the people, proposed a law, to form, what he called, the proconsulate of the seas.  This law, though vigorously opposed at first, eventually was carried.  The person to whom this new office was to be entrusted, was to have maritime power, without control or restriction, over all the seas, from the Pillars of Hercules to the Thracian Bosphorus, and the countries lying on these seas, for fifty miles inland:  he was to be empowered to raise as many seamen and troops as he deemed necessary, and to take, out of the public treasury, money sufficient to pay the expence of paying them, equipping the ships, and executing the objects of the law.  The proconsulate of the seas was to be vested in the same person for three years.