[Empire Total War Torrent Pirate Bay
Laurice Whack
The Black Sun Pirates are a group of pirates who exist throughout the galaxy, motivated solely by greed. Equipped with stolen weapons, as well as armaments left behind after the conclusion of the Clone Wars, pirates are little danger to larger, more organized military forces but may still pose a threat to isolated ships and troops.
In the Imperial campaign, pirate forces were noted as cooperating with those of the nascent Rebel Alliance. Boba Fett was employed to infiltrate a pirate compound orbiting Ilum, destroying its ring of sensor pods and eliminating picket ships, in order to facilitate Imperial control of the region and the arrest of a pirate commander involved with the Alliance. The pirate forces there were quickly eliminated by the Imperial Starfleet, though not without cost. Similar operations were conducted across the galaxy around the same time as the Empire's control over the galaxy was reinforced and the pirate cells that had taken control of lax and corrupt enforcement of Imperial law.
Early in Tyber Zann's campaign to reestablish his empire after escaping Imperial custody, his forces encountered those of pirates over Shola and Nal Hutta. Among other vessels, these pirates were notably equipped with antiquated V-wing starfighters. These ships were eventually destroyed by Zann's forces as they expanded from their pocket of the galaxy.
Pirate troops were also employed by Jabba the Hutt during his occupation of Ryloth. These troops were wiped out by Consortium forces as part of Zann's efforts to wreak his vengeance against the Hutt for leading to his capture by the Empire. Other pirates were encountered by Consortium forces throughout their efforts to corrupt and control the galaxy; by the end of Zann's campaign and the theft of the Eclipse by Consortium ships, they posed little threat.
Pirates were not known at any time to be strategic masterminds. Their ships were frequently dispatched in waves against encroaching enemies; these tactics, in conjunction with the often defunct nature of the weapons they bought on the black market, stole from armories or otherwise obtained, often led to high casualty counts for pirate forces. Their asteroid bases, though ubiquitous across many pirate factions, were nonetheless significantly less armed and armored than the Cardan-class stations employed by the Empire and the models utilized by the Alliance. They had little staying power against cruisers or capital ships.
The state often enacts violence against marginalized groups by rendering them monstrous. The early eighteenth century saw early and stellar instances of this phenomenon in the way the British Empire pursued and executed pirates. These "golden age" pirates represented an extraordinary cross-section of marginalization politically, economically, socially, and otherwise, all of which threatened the political and social mores of Imperial Britain. In order to implement a policy and practice of pirate annihilation, British authorities constructed pirates as monstrous by racializing, dehumanizing, and emphasizing the supernatural quality of pirates. This study analyzes three eighteenth-century piracy trial transcripts--those of William Kidd, Stede Bonnet, and William Fly--in order to assess how lawyers and judges constructed pirates as monstrous so as to justify the massive and total violence inflicted on them as a class resulting in their complete destruction. In so doing, this study tracks rhetorical tactics and strategies still used by empires and the state today against marginalized peoples to an original historical source.
With the destruction of Carthage, the demise of the Seleucid Empire, and Ptolemaic Egypt on the wane, there was no strong naval power left in the Mediterranean. Rome was the only major Mediterranean power left, but, being land-based, it had a reduced navy at that time and relied on hiring ships as needed. Rome protected the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic seas, on account of their proximity, with expeditions sent against the pirate bases on the Ligurian and Illyrian coast.
As a result, the pirates became consolidated and organized. The smaller communities of the Greek and African waters were left to make their own arrangements. Communities unable to fend off the pirate incursions were forced to come to an understanding with the pirates, and thus became havens.
Crete was still independent. Civil wars had devastated the land, and much of the population turned to piracy. Crete became a major haven for pirates, with its strategic position in the midst of the Mediterranean and because it did not fall under the control of any of the Mediterranean empires.
One of the pirates' main sources of income was slavery. Rome's economy had become dependent on slaves as Roman landowners held large plantations worked by them. Sicily was particularly notorious for its large Roman estates worked by slaves from all over the Mediterranean. When the Republic was not at war, it needed an alternative supply and so it turned to the pirates, who were Rome's most consistent supplier. That had the additional effect of powerful interest groups in Rome (mainly the business class) who lobbied for inactivity.[5]
The island of Delos became the centre of the Mediterranean slave market; other markets included those of Rhodes and Alexandria. In its heyday, 10,000 slaves passed through Delos' markets in a single day.[5] With the plantations came a harsher system of slavery and greater demand. Western Asia was the main supply and was reduced by piracy and Roman tax farmers.
Eventually, Rome took action. In 102 BCE, the Romans sent Marcus Antonius the Orator to Cilicia with an army and a fleet. The pirates were no match for this onslaught so they fled, Antonius proclaimed victory, and the Senate awarded him a triumph. But the pirates merely regrouped on Crete, and soon returned to their old bases in Cilicia and piracy resumed. For over two decades Rome, occupied with other threats, ignored the problem again.
In 68 BCE, the pirates launched a raid at Ostia, barely fifteen miles from Rome, by sailing into the harbour and burning the consular war fleet. The port went up in flames and the grip of famine tightened around Rome. Starving citizens took to the Forum, demanding action.[6]
Finally, after heated debate, under the lex Gabinia Pompey was granted extraordinary powers to eliminate the Cilician pirates.He organized his efforts in a two-stage campaign, first clearing the western Mediterranean, and second overwhelming the pirates trapped in the eastern Mediterranean. The western campaign lasted 40 days.The eastern campaign lasted 49 days. In total, Pompey's campaign removed the Cilician pirates, who had held a stranglehold on Mediterranean commerce and threatened Rome with famine, in a mere 89 days in the summer of 66 BCE.
Pompey divided the Mediterranean into thirteen districts, to each of which he assigned a fleet and a commander. Pompey then swept through the western Mediterranean with his own powerful fleet, driving the pirates out or into the paths of his other commanders.
By keeping vigilance over all the sea at the same time (and at great cost), there was nowhere to run or hide. Those Cilician pirates that did escape fled to the eastern Mediterranean. Pompey completed this first part of his campaign in 40 days.
Pompey then turned to the eastern Mediterranean. He gave mild terms to those pirates who surrendered to him personally, as opposed to his other commanders. Some pirates surrendered their ships, their families and themselves up to Pompey. From these, he learned about where others were hiding.
Many pirates retreated to their strongholds of Asia Minor, where they gathered and waited for Pompey to attack them. At Coracesium Pompey won a decisive victory and blockaded the town. The Cilician pirates surrendered all their harbours and fortified islands.
The Romans took the wealth the pirates had collected, and released many of their prisoners, (prisoners of worth whom the pirates intended to ransom), but other prisoners were still sold into slavery. Strabo writes that Pompey destroyed 1,300 pirate vessels of all sizes.
Pompey spared the lives of numerous Cilician pirates who had been taken prisoner, realizing that many had been driven to such recourse by desperation. Those who surrendered were settled in various parts of the southern coast of Asia Minor, where the population was sparse. Many were settled at Soli, which was thereafter called Pompeiopolis. Other settlements were created at Mallus, Adana, and Epiphaneia in Cilicia.
When Quintus Sertorius, the renegade Roman general, was driven from Hispania, he fell in with Cilician pirates. Together they attacked and took Pityussa, the most southerly of the Balearic Islands, which they started using as a base. When the governor of Hispania Ulterior found out he sent a war-fleet and almost a full legion which drove Sertorius and the pirates from the Balearics. They regrouped in Baetica where the pirates decided to break with Sertorius and sail to Africa to help install the tyrant Ascalis (a man supported by Sertorius's Roman opponents) on the throne of Tingis. Sertorius followed them to Africa, rallied the Mauritanians around Tingis, and defeated Ascalis and the pirates in battle.[7]
When Sulla died in 78 BC, Julius Caesar returned to Rome as a lawyer, prosecuted Sulla's supporters, and headed to the Greek city of Rhodes to study oratory. Pirates seized his vessel in 75 BC, kidnapped Caesar (then aged 25), and held him for ransom. Caesar felt insulted at the twenty talents (480,000 sesterces) ransom and insisted that the pirates raise the demand to fifty talents (1,200,000 sesterces) more suitable for his status; his retinue quickly raised the money in the local cities, before returning to the pirate stronghold.
During the slave rebellion known as the Third Servile War, Spartacus was said to have brokered a deal with the Cilician pirates, hoping to smuggle a force of rebels across to Sicily. Sometime in 71 BC, the pirates deserted Spartacus and he had to give up his plans to cross over to Sicily.
795a8134c1