place
Phaselis
Phaselis, a coastal town in Lycia on the Pamphylian-Lycian border, captured and used as a pirate base in the early 1st century BC; recovered by P. Servilius Vatia in 77 BC. Cicero uses its name as a byword for a brigand's depot (Verr. 2.4.21-22).
Reading notes
- Against Verres, Second Hearing, Book IV §21 Phaselis
Lycian coastal town that became a pirate haven by accident of geography. The pirates' standing accomplices among friendly cities are the type-figure for what Messana was to Verres: not a brigand-state, but the legitimate town that hosts brigandage by treaty-and-trade.