2

2II.Then he sent his men up and down to get him this money, so that he was left in manner alone among these thieves of the Cilicians (which are the cruellest butchers in the world) with one of his friends, and two of his slaves only: and yet he made so little reckoning of them, that when he was desirous to sleep, he sent unto them to command them to make no noise. Thus was he thirty-eight days among them, not kept as prisoner, but rather waited upon by them as a prince. All this time he would boldly exercise himself in any sport or pastime they would go to. And otherwhile also he would write verses, and make orations, and call them together to say them before them: and if any of them seemed as though they had not understood him, or passed not for them, he called them blockheads and brute beasts; and laughing, threatened them that he would hang them up. But they were as merry with the matter as could be, and took all in good part, thinking that this his bold speech came through the simplicity of his youth. So when his ransom was come from the city of Miletum, they being paid their money, and he again set at liberty, he then presently armed and manned certain ships out of the haven of Miletum, to follow those thieves, whom he found yet riding at anker in the same iland. So he took the most of them, and had the spoil of their goods; but for their bodies, he brought them into the city of Pergamus and there committed them to prison, whilst he himself went to speak with

Junius, who had the government of Asia, as unto whom the execution of these pirates did belong, for that he was Praetor of that country. But this Praetor, having a great fancy to be fingering of the money, because there was good store of it, answered that he would consider of these prisoners at better leisure. Caesar, leaving Junius there, returned again unto Pergamus, and there hung up all these thieves openly upon a cross, as he had oftentimes promised them in the ile he would do, when they thought he did but jest.