Bad Actors Who Thought Something Was Funny, Until it Suddenly Stopped Being Funny
For weeks, the Cilician pirates thought their odd and seemingly overconfident captive was funny. Whenever they got too loud when he wanted to sleep, Julius Caesar demanded that they quiet down. He often recited speeches and poems that he had composed, and berated them as uncultured barbarians if they failed to appreciate them. He also told them that soon as he was freed, he would come back and crucify them all. They thought he was being funny. He was not. After 38 days of captivity, Caesar’s ransom arrived, and he was freed. He immediately headed to Miletus, on Asia Minor’s western coast, and although he possessed no official authority whatsoever, raised an ad hoc naval force.
Caesar ceased to be funny in his former captors’ eyes when he sailed back to the site of his captivity, surprised the pirates, and captured them all. He took them to Pergamum, further up Asia Minor’s coast, and locked them up. He then headed to Ephesus, the province’s capital, and demanded that the Roman governor do his duty and execute them. The governor however was corrupt, and schemed to set the pirates free in exchange for a hefty bribe – they had amassed plenty of booty in their years of piracy. Disgusted, Caesar returned to Pergamum, took the pirates out of prison, and on his own authority, ordered them all crucified. He showed them a bit of leniency, though, for old times’ sake. Rather than crucify them alive and leave them to die in excruciating pain, he had their throats slit first.
