The well-calculated moderation of Pompeius helped even more than fear to open the gates of these scarcely accessible marine strongholds.

His predecessors had ordered every captured freebooter to be nailed to the cross; without hesitation he gave quarter to all, and treated in particular the common rowers found in the captured piratical vessels with unusual indulgence.
The bold Cilician sea-kings alone ventured on an attempt to maintain at least their own waters by arms against the Romans; after having placed their children and wives and their rich treasures for security in the mountain-fortresses of the Taurus, they awaited the Roman fleet at the western frontier of Cilicia, in the offing of Coracesium.

But here the ships of Pompeius, well manned and well provided with all implements of war, achieved a complete victory.
Without farther hindrance he landed and began to storm and break up the mountain-castles of the corsairs, while he continued to offer to themselves freedom and life as the price of submission.

Soon the great multitude desisted from the continuance of a hopeless war in their strongholds and mountains, and consented to surrender.
Forty-nine days after Pompeius had appeared in the eastern seas, Cilicia was subdued and the war at an end.
The rapid suppression of piracy was a great relief, but not a grand achievement; with the resources of the Roman state, which had been called forth in lavish measure, the corsairs could as little cope as the combined gangs of thieves in a great city can cope with a well-organized police.

It was a naive proceeding to celebrate such a razzia as a victory.