The rise of Caesarism: the weakened Roman Republic was crushed by Julius Caesar, a charismatic military leader who exploited his popularity with a Roman people who desired security above all else.(History--Rome)

This is the seventh installment in a series of articles on the rise and fall of the Roman Republic.

The Cilician pirates in the early first century B.C. were the scourge of the eastern Mediterranean. They commanded huge fleets and immense amounts of wealth from their strongholds along the southeast coast of Asia Minor and had spread their depredations over the entire Aegean Sea. By 75 B.C. they apparently enjoyed the sponsorship of Rome's sworn enemy Mithridates, king of Pontus, who, having already lost one debilitating war with Rome, still sought to undermine Roman power any way he could. Sometime in that year, a group of Cilicians captured a vessel carrying a ...