Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Gaius Caesar, while still a young man, in trying to escape from Sulla, fell into the hands of pirates. First of all, when demand was made upon him for a very large sum of money, he laughed at the robbers for their ignorance of the man they had in their power, and agreed to give double the sum. Later, being kept under guard while he was getting together the money, he enjoined upon the men that they should give him a quiet time for sleep and should not talk. He wrote speeches and poems, and read them to his captors, and those who did not speak very highly of them he called dull barbarians, and threatened laughingly to hang them. And this he actually did a little later. For when the ransom was brought, and he was set free, he got together men and ships from Asia Minor, seized the robbers, and crucified them. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Caesar, chaps. i.-ii. (708 A-D); Suetonius, Divus Iulius, 4: Velleius Paterculus, Roman History, ii. 41; Valerius Maximus, vi. 9. 15.)