This piracy reached its highest power during and after the Social and Civil Wars of Rome, the outlaws taking prompt advantage of the distractions of the times, and gaining a strength and audacity unknown before. Their chief places of refuge were in the coast districts of Cilicia and Pisidia, in Asia Minor, while in the mountain valleys which led down from Taurus to that coast they had strongholds difficult of access, and enabling them to defy attack by land. They were now aided by Mithridates, who supplied them with money and encouraged their raids. So great became their audacity that they carried off important personages from the coast of Italy, among them two praetors, whom they held to ransom. They ravaged all unguarded shores, and are said to have captured in all four hundred important towns. The riches gained in these raids were displayed with the ostentation of conquerors. The sails of their ships were dyed with that costly Tyrian purple which at a later date was reserved for the robes of emperors; their oars were inlaid with silver, and their pennants glittered with gold. As for the merchant fleets of Rome, they made their journeys under constant risk, and there was danger, if the pirates were not suppressed, that they would cut off the entire grain-supply from Africa and Sicily. The most interesting story told in connection with these marauders is connected with the youthful days of Julius Caesar, afterwards so great a man in Rome. In the year 76 B.C. Caesar, then a young man of twenty-four, and seemingly given over to mere enjoyment of life, with no indications of political aspiration, was on his way to the island of Rhodes, where he wished to perfect himself in oratory in the famous school of Apollonius Melo, in which Cicero, a few years before, had gained instruction in the art. Cicero had taught Rome the full power of oratory, and Caesar, who was no mean orator by nature, and recognized the usefulness of the art, naturally sought instruction from Cicero's teacher. He was travelling as a gentleman of rank, but on his way was taken prisoner by pirates, who, deeming him a person of great distinction, held him at a high ransom. For six weeks Caesar remained in their hands, waiting until his ransom should be paid. He was in no respect downcast by his misfortune, but took part freely in the games and pastimes of the pirates, and, according to Plutarch, treated them with such disdain that whenever their noise disturbed his sleep he sent orders to them to keep silence. In his familiar conversations with the chiefs he plainly told them that he would one day crucify them all. Doubtless they laughed heartily at this pleasantry, as they deemed it, but they were to find it a grim sort of jest.