The Roman History

GALLUS AND CONSTANTIUS.

...it was often possible for them The Isaurians, a group known for their fierce independence and frequent revolts against Roman rule. to be pacified, yet they frequently threw everything into confusion with unexpected raids. Growing from secret and rare acts of banditry, and nurtured into a worse audacity by the lack of punishment, they erupted into serious wars. For a long time, they had been lifting their rebellious spirits with restless movements, but they were particularly incited by an indignity which they loudly protested: the fact that some of their captured comrades had been thrown to predatory wild beasts in the amphitheater of Iconium modern-day Konya, Turkey, a town in Pisidia, which was contrary to established custom.

And, as Tullius Marcus Tullius Cicero, the famous Roman orator and statesman. says, just as even wild beasts, once warned, usually return to the place where they were once fed, so they all descended like a whirlwind from the obstructed and steep mountains to seek out the regions bordering the sea.

Hiding themselves there in secluded valleys, they would watch for sailors when night approached—at a time when the moon was still a crescent and not yet shining with full brilliance. When they perceived the sailors were sunk in sleep, they would creep along the anchor cables on all fours original: "quadrupedo gradu", and, throwing themselves with stealthy steps into the boats, they would set upon the unsuspecting crews. As their greed grew into savagery, they spared no one among the slaughter, and after butchering everyone, they carried off rich or useful merchandise with no one left to resist them. However, these deeds were not perpetrated for long. For once the deaths of the slaughtered travelers became known, no one would dock a ship at those stations; instead, as if avoiding the lethal cliffs of Sciron In Greek mythology, Sciron was a bandit who forced travelers to wash his feet on a cliff's edge before kicking them into the sea., they sailed close to the shores of Cyprus, which lie opposite the crags of Isauria.

As time went on and no imported goods could be found, they left the seacoast and moved into Lycaonia, which borders Isauria. There, by setting up dense blockades on the roads used by those laying siege, they sustained themselves on the property of the provincials and travelers. This passion for rebellion stirred the soldiers, who were stationed throughout many of the neighboring towns and fortresses. Each soldier, striving to the best of his ability to repel the widening spread of these "serpents," now acted in groups con...