Chapter 367 Rampant Pirates

Cicero agreed to the Sicilians' request, not only because Sicily was where he started his career and the Sicilians regarded him as their patron saint, but more importantly, he needed to make a splash and establish his authority in the Roman legal community, so that his name would be praised by the Roman people.

Coincidentally, the defense lawyer invited by Valles was the Roman senator Hortensius, who was the most famous lawyer in Rome in the past decade. He was known for his elegant movements and gorgeous words. He also had a close relationship with Sulla and had served as the orator at Sulla's funeral. He has always maintained his status as an important member of the Senate.

The difficulty of winning this lawsuit is imaginable, but this has aroused Cicero's fighting spirit.

Through his unremitting efforts, he collected a lot of evidence of Valles' crimes.

On the day of the trial, he cleverly avoided arguing with Hortensius in his statements, avoiding dragging the lawsuit into a long-term consumption, and instead presented all the evidence at the beginning.

This sudden step disrupted Hortensius's plan and focused the attention of the judges and the public on the evidence of the crime.

Hortensius gave up his right to defend himself, and the trial ended quickly.

Before the verdict was made, Valles fled to Massilia with his family.

The news spread throughout Rome: Hortensius's rule over the legal world was over, and Cicero wore the crown.

From then on, Cicero became a celebrity in Rome.

In the blink of an eye, it was the new year (69 BC, the fourth year of the establishment of Nix), and Caesar, who was elected as the quaestor, was sent by the Senate to Outer Spain to serve as the deputy of the provincial governor Antistius Vitus.

Just before he set off, he suffered two unexpected blows: his aunt Julia and his wife Cornelia died one after another, for which he held two grand funerals.

At Julia's funeral, Caesar gave a speech about her illustrious ancestors (the Ulysses clan was descended from the goddess Venus) and the relationship between her mother's family and the ancient kings of Rome, but he did not mention his controversial uncle Marius. However, he included a memorial to Marius' victory in the funeral procession and had an actor play Marius, and no one present protested.

It was traditional for elderly ladies of Roman noble families to receive a grand public funeral after their death, but Caesar gave his wife Cornelia the same honor.

He was the first Roman to hold a grand public funeral for such a young woman.

This gesture was very popular with the people, and many people saw it as an expression of grief from a kind-hearted man. After all, when Caesar was young, he refused Sulla's forgiveness for his wife, and thus wandered for many years. Although he had many romantic affairs, the people believed through this funeral that he loved his wife deeply.

The Romans valued funerals, and Caesar also successfully promoted himself through the funerals of his aunt and wife.

Although Sulla won the civil war, he did not win many hearts and minds. The Roman citizens did not accept all his decisions. Therefore, after his death, many of his decrees were overturned one after another.

In this era, the powerful and the rich were in power, and the lives of the common people were becoming increasingly difficult. Therefore, the Roman people began to miss Rome when the plebeians were in power, especially in the minds of many people, Marius was still a great hero. He made the Romans who were frustrated in Africa proud again, and saved Italy from the threat of northern barbarians.

It’s just that the two leaders of the plebeians have long passed away, and the plebeians no longer exist under the continuous suppression of Sulla and his followers. However, after experiencing these two funerals, many Roman people suddenly realized that Caesar, as Marius’ nephew and Cinna’s son-in-law, was not only a maverick and romantic Roman youth, but he might also be the best successor of the plebeians.

While the Roman people were still discussing the funeral, Caesar set off for Outer Spain, where he was in charge of the province's finances and participated in various local activities as a representative of Governor Virtus.

Virtus, who trusted Caesar very much, also sent him to some places to handle judicial affairs. He completed all tasks well and was highly praised by the local people.

In the late autumn of that year, Caesar came to the city of Cadiz in Spain to handle court affairs.

When he was free, he visited the local Temple of Hercules and saw a statue of Alexander the Great. He suddenly burst into tears because the Macedonian king had conquered half the world at the same age, while he himself had not achieved anything so far.

What made him even more upset was that he had a dream not long after that, in which he dreamed that he had raped his mother Aurelia.

He was anxious and went to consult a prophet.

The prophet explained his dream: he was destined to rule the world because his raped mother represented Mother Earth, the mother of all things.

These two things eventually prompted him to decide to leave the province early and return to the Roman political arena to fight.

The provincial governor Vitus, who had made friends with him, approved his early departure and properly handled the financial affairs after his departure to avoid anyone blaming Caesar.

After Caesar returned to Rome, one of the important things he did was to remarry. His bride was Pompeia, the granddaughter of Sulla and Quintus Pompeius (who served as consul at the same time as Sulla in 88 BC).

After the experience of provincial politics, Caesar became more tactful. On the one hand, he made a big fuss about his relationship with Marius, and on the other hand, he used this marriage to ease the hostility of conservative senators in the Senate.

Pompeia and the great Pompeius were only distant relatives, and the two families were very distant, so Caesar's second marriage did not seem to directly connect him with the greatest and most beloved general in Rome at that time.

During his tenure as consul, Pompey was teased by Crassus and made a fool of himself many times. After leaving office, he learned his lesson, deliberately kept a low profile, and was humble at all times, so he performed mediocrely in the Senate.

This does not mean that Pompey began to be content with the status quo. On the contrary, trapped in the Roman political arena where power, interests, conspiracies, and ambitions intertwined, he missed the praise of the people for his victory on the battlefield, and began to wait patiently for the opportunity to seek a new military command position.

At this time, the provinces and regions under Roman rule were in peace, except for Asia Minor.

There, the Roman army led by Lucullus completely captured Pontus, and King Mithridates fled to neighboring Armenia and was protected by King Tigranes.

Lucullus sent envoys to ask the Armenian king to hand over Mithridates, but was rejected by Tigranes.

So, without the authorization of Rome, Lucullus declared war on Armenia.

Soon, he destroyed the Armenian army and captured its important city Tigranosetta.

The most powerful country in the Mesopotamian region was vulnerable to Lucullus, which made his position as the commander of the army stable.

Pompey had no chance to command the army on land for the time being, but the opportunity to lead troops at sea always existed because of the rampant pirates in the Mediterranean.

The problem of Mediterranean pirates has a long history, but after Rome began to invade and rule the East, pirates became extremely rampant. The main reason was that Rome established hegemony over the entire Mediterranean and broke all local authorities to prevent them from threatening its own interests, but refused to bear the burden of direct management. As a result, Rome cleared the battlefield for the pirates and provided them with breeding ground.

For those areas that lost their authoritative rule and became chaotic, pirates at least brought order to the people living there, so there were often some towns that paid protection fees to the pirates, and some towns were willing to provide ports. In this way, the pirates' team grew stronger and stronger, and their traces were everywhere in the Mediterranean.

Later, pirates began to threaten Roman citizens themselves. Caesar was hijacked by pirates by no means an isolated case. In the past 10 years, being captured by pirates has become part of the professional dangers of young Roman nobles.

However, the Roman nobles needed a large number of slaves, especially high-quality slaves, and pirates were the most stable providers of slaves. In several major ports in southern Italy, such as Tarantum, more than 10,000 slaves were bought and sold every day. The huge scale of transactions brought huge income, which fattened the pirate leaders and the big tycoons in Rome.

Some Roman nobles even raised pirates, which not only made huge profits but also helped them to attack their opponents.

The support and indulgence of the Roman nobles made the pirates' team become larger and larger. They controlled the ocean more and more and had the ability to cut off the Mediterranean shipping lanes from time to time.

From slaves to food, all the supplies Rome needed began to be threatened by pirates.

The Senate was still hesitant, but the voices of the people were getting louder and louder, so the Senate had to respond to the people's demands and sent Marcus Antony as commander-in-chief the year before Spartacus's uprising to maintain maritime security and eliminate pirates.

Marcus Antony was the greatest lawyer in Rome before Cicero. He served as a Roman consul and led a fleet to eliminate Cilicia, the most important stronghold of pirates.

But the Marcus Antony sent by the Senate this time was the son of that great lawyer. The proverb "a hero father makes a hero son" does not apply to him.

It was well known in the Senate that Antony II had little military ability. The reason why he was chosen was that some interest groups in Rome did not want the pirates to be wiped out.

After Antony II took office, as some senators wished, he successfully accomplished two things: first, he engaged in lucrative pirate activities in the area around Sicily; second, the fleet he sent was defeated by real pirates near Crete.