Pirates, Dictators, and Longing for Security

Why do people root for the rebel resistance in movies but crave paternalistic authority in real life?

Whenever I’m in the Mediterranean I’m reminded of the rich lore of piracy. In the popular imagination, piracy is associated with the Golden Age of Piracy in the New World between about 1650-1726. The genesis of the public’s fascination with pirates was the 1883 publication of Treasure Island, by Robert Lewis Stevenson, which has inspired dozens of books and films, most recently the Pirates of the Caribbean. Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow may explain why, in a recent survey, women claimed to find the archetypal characters of pirates and vampires the most sexually attractive.

The Mediterranean’s has a long history of piracy going back to the ancient world. Piracy presented a major headache for the Roman Republic until the Senate granted Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (known in English as Pompey) special power in 67 B.C. to assemble a large expeditionary fleet and wipe out piracy throughout the Med.

Pompey performed this task with extraordinary organization and energy. At the same time, he surprised many by offering many of the pirates clemency in return for vowing never to return to piracy and to swear allegiance to Rome. In this instance, his character contrasted with that of Julius Caesar, who was once, as a young man, captured and held ransom by pirates while he was on his way to Rhodes to study with local philosophers.

Caesar was friendly to the pirates and encouraged them to raise the ransom amount to reflect his status. At the same time, he promised them that, someday, when he was a powerful man, he would hunt them down and crucify them. They thought he was joking. He wasn’t, and he later kept his promise.

Conservative and sensible members of the Roman Senate acknowledged that Pompey had done a great service by eliminating the pirate menace, but they also correctly perceived that he would use the occasion to augment his personal power at the expense of the Roman constitution. They understood that when the people are frightened and crave security, they are always tempted to cede far too much power to ambitious men who proclaim to provide safety. Human nature being what it is, the powerful “protector” will, in turn, often be tempted to abuse his augmented power.

Pompey did, in fact, amass great personal power following his campaign against the pirates until he was ultimately defeated by the forces of Julius Caesar in the civil war that began in 49 B.C. After losing the decisive Battle of Pharsalus, he sought refuge in Egypt, where he was promptly murdered by a Roman mercenary in the employ of Ptolemy VIII, who feared that Pompey would try to conquer Egypt. Upon hearing of Pompey’s death in Egypt, Cicero is said to have remarked, “His life outlasted his power.”

Years of prosperity and security have caused many Americans (who are ignorant of history) to forget that ruthless men and women often cloak their ambitions in benevolent sounding promises of “caring” about the people and wanting to protect them from the dangers of the world. In a recent press interview to promote his new book, Dr. Anthony Fauci proclaimed that “caring is in my DNA.” Gag me with a spoon as Valley Girls used to say.

This morning, while contemplating the Pirates of the Mediterranean, a friend sent me the following:

This reason for this is that the cinema is a safe space in which people may indulge in fantasies, while the real world may occasionally be visited by frightening things such as reports of a novel respiratory virus emanating from Wuhan, China.