| In the history of ancient Mediterranean marine civilization,piracy in Greek and Roman classical documents has experienced a tortuous evolution from the act of warriors to the act of "common enemy of all".To some extent,this evolution process represents the changes of political situation and social life in the Mediterranean world from Homer’s era to the early Roman Empire.In view of this,this paper diachronically investigates the narrative of piracy in classical literature and its relationship with the context of historical facts,especially tries to clarify the concept of piracy reflected in relevant texts and its diachronic evolution.In Homeric Epic,the poet’s cognition of piracy shows a seemingly contradictory attitude.On the one hand,he recognised its rapid acquisition of wealth and glory.On the other hand,he emphasized the sufferings and misfortunes it caused to the looters and victims.However,it is worth noting that when describing the negative effects of piracy,the poet only makes a general statement and does not use such emotional words as praising heroic piracy,let alone severely condemning it.On the contrary,the poet often defended people’s piracy with the words of being forced to make a living,and even called it "the will of Zeus".From this perspective,the poet weaves the seemingly contradictory narrative of piracy into a quite consistent deep logic.In contrast,although Hesiod’s Works and Days does not directly deal with piracy,the condemnation of violent seizure of wealth is the core content of his view of "justice",and it is also an important distinction between civilization and barbarism in his works.Homeric Epic and Works and Days have different value judgments on violent plunder,which in fact reflects the agitation and change of social ideas in the early city-state era.Tyrtaeus’ s praise of soldiers abiding by collective discipline and defending the interests of the city-state also shows social values different from Homeric Epic,which indicates a gradual shift in the pirate narrative of classical literature.Thucydides in the Classical Age traced the piracy of the early Greeks in a tone of comparison between the present and the past,although not directly mentioning the concept of civilization,showing the narrative style of respecting the present and restraining the ancient,which means the germination and origin of the binary opposition narrative paradigm between piracy and civilized order to some extent.Demosthenes used the pirate discourse to attack the king of Macedonia,especially the description of the latter as "pirates of Greece",which indirectly clarified the dual conflict between pirates and the Greek world.In the 3rd century BC,with the help of the material of piracy,Polybius shaped the Roman enemies Aetolians and Nabis as "pirates(or robbers)in the Greek world" and the Illyrians as "common enemies of all other nations",and made the Ligurians appear as "barbarians" who are enthusiastic about "misdeeds",while the expansion of Rome was written as a good act of punishing criminals and people and rectifying falsehood,this makes the dualistic opposition between pirates and the Greek world and even the human world further;by placing Polybius’ s pirate texts in his overall works,especially in connection with his historical purport,it can be found that these texts are all aimed at demonstrating the good Roman regime and its role in Rome’s unification of the Mediterranean world;In this narrative logic,the Illyrian Wars,the Ligurian Wars and the wars against the Aetorians and Nabis launched by Rome obviously not only reflected Rome’s elimination of the bad habits of enemy piracy at the military level,but also implied the victory and transformation of a good regime to a corrupt regime.The writer who really and clearly constructed and wrote pirates as "public enemy of mankind" is Cicero at the end of the Roman Republic.But this does not mean the final completion of the construction of the negative image of pirates.With the advent of "Pax Romana",a group of intellectual elites directly introduced the elements of "civilization" and "barbarism" to shape the negative image of pirates with a stronger dichotomy narrative stroke.For example,Strabo and Diodorus seek practical basis for the theory of "barbarism" of pirates from the perspective of natural environment,and believe that "barbaric" ethnic groups often live in rugged and desolate places and are more likely to engage in piracy.Livy mostly followed Cicero’s writing paradigm of "pirates are the common enemy of all",and believed that the Ligurian pirates were treacherous and ignored the agreements and laws of the "civilized world",and were not the "legitimate enemy" of Rome.Based on the above dual narrative paradigm between the pirate world and the Roman "civilized world",Plutarch and Appian and other intellectual elites in the Principate believed that pirates had a serious impact on the civilized order composed of various elements such as the moral norms,religious faith and national honor of the Roman world.According to this narrative logic,Gnaenus Pompeius,a general who suppressed and pacified pirates in the 1st century BC,is moralized as a "angel of civilization" and respected as an ideal soldier to eliminate the sores of civilized society and transform the vices of barbaric society.In addition,Octavian’s description of Sextus Pompeius’ s as "the leader of pirates" with the help of piracy materials,the hereditary records of writers such as Velleius,and the appearance of a number of literary works on piracy in the Principate strengthened the binary opposition between pirates and the "civilized world".It can be said that since the mid-term of the Roman Republic,the pirate narrative of a group of intellectual elites has gradually become stronger and progressive.It shows that pirates are not only outside the Roman legal world and civilized order,but also seriously threaten the latter’s security.The expansion of Rome is naturally written as the immortal feat of eradicate evils,correct abuses and even spreading civilization,all these laid a legitimate foundation for the expansion of Rome to the Mediterranean region from the text level.This kind of narrative style is like the repeated presentation of a certain writing style,which contains a strong moral and political rhetoric.It should be pointed out that the recognition of the specific connotation of civilization and barbarism in the texts of previous dynasties has the political color and value meaning of their respective times,but it is generally determined that the attitude towards violent plunder(especially piracy),together with the factors such as whether to cultivate crops,worship gods and abide by the law,has gradually become the basic value yardstick for ancient writers to define civilization and barbarism.In a word,pirate narrative has become an extremely important part of ancient texts to build the narrative structure of civilization and barbarism.There is no doubt that the narrative of piracy in ancient texts largely reflects the evolution of the realistic situation of piracy from Homeric Age to the early Roman Empire.In Homeric Age,piracy was an important way for people to seek livelihood and improve their social status.It basically had no negative connotation.On the general level,it was recognized and even praised.The reason lies in Homer’s specific economic situation,power structure and heroic values of personal honor.Subsequently,in the middle and late period of the ancient wind era,with the development of social productive forces and the rise of city states,the social form and social ethics in Greece have undergone profound changes,and the legitimacy of piracy has gradually shaken.Of course,this evolution process is not only long,but also not synchronous in different regions and ethnic groups,showing great twists and turns and imbalance.The situation of Greek city states in Classical Age provides us with a further observation perspective.In the Classical Age,pirates have basically presented a negative image in the social concept level of the Greek world.Even in some minority areas and ethnic groups,the customs of their ancestors sailing and looting still exist.This situation is largely due to the differences and imbalances in the socio-economic development,social transformation degree and folk customs of different regions and ethnic groups in the Greek world.At this time,the negative image of pirates can be glimpsed from the political games between the warring parties in Classical Age,especially Athens and Macedonia with the help of pirate discourse.The instrumental role of pirate materials and the concept of piracy embodied in them have been more fully demonstrated in the process of the rise of Rhode Island and other forces in the Hellenistic Age.From the late4 th century BC to the end of the 3rd century BC,Rhodes,based on anti piracy,successively attacked the Tyrrhenians and Cretens,and to win great reputation and high prestige and become the "guardian of the sea" and "friend of businessmen" in the Greek world;other Hellenistic kings Eumelos,Cavalos and Ziaelas also gained a good reputation in the Greek world for suppressing piracy and maintaining maritime security.These historical facts show that at this time,at the level of social concept,piracy has become a "maritime scourge" that endangers maritime security and hinders maritime trade.The most skillful and successful use of pirate discourse tools also belongs to the Romans.From the end of the 3rd century BC to the beginning of the 1st century BC,Rome successively attacked Liguria,Balearic Islands,Aetolia,and Cilicia on the grounds of fighting against piracy.In addition to being an important tool for the game between countries,the material of piracy,being an excellent reference and background frame to set off the negative image of others,is also an important discourse weapon for Cicero to accuse Verres and Octavian to eliminate Sextus Pompeius at the end of the Republic.On the one hand,Gnaeus Pompeius’ s unprecedented precedent of "imperium" in the process of anti-piracy has become the harbinger and forerunner of Octavian’s supreme "imperium" in a few decades,which can be described as an important part of the transition from Republic to Principate.The so-called anti-piracy feats of Pompeius and Octavian by ancient writers providing important materials for the ruling group to launch the God-making movement and political publicity,were precipitated and internalized into the historical memory of the Roman state and the spiritual bond of the people,and prepared the ideological conditions for the enhancement of Pompeius and Octavian’s personal power and the subsequent political system reform to a certain extent;on the contrary,the promotion of personal power such as Pompeius and Octavian has laid a political foundation for the ruling group to consolidate the ideological project.Therefore,in the winner’s anti-piracy discourse system,"pirates are common enemies" has almost become a universal assertion and group memory.Of course,the anti-piracy wars and the profound changes in politics,military and ideology caused by it are only one of the many factors affecting the reform of the Roman political system,and its historical role should not be excessively elevated.To sum up,from Homeric Age to Principate,under the synchronic interaction between text narration and historical reality,and in the diachronic inheritance and development between various text narratives,the connotation of piracy in the perspective of social concept has gone through a long process of evolution and shaping.In Homeric Age,seeking livelihood and obtaining honor constituted the dominant characteristics of the connotation of piracy;since the middle of the Archaic Age,due to the development of countries and the profound changes caused by them,the fierce game between countries and the moral and political narration of the intellectual elites of previous times,the characteristics of livelihood and glory contained in piracy have been gradually weakened and stripped,Instead,it is endowed and added with extremely negative characteristics and meanings,such as "maritime disaster","maritime plague","maritime crime","common enemy of all","enemy of civilization".This concept of piracy had a far-reaching impact on the writing of piracy in the late Roman Empire,the Middle Ages and even the modern world. |
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