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Table: λῃστής in Kidnapping / Piracy Contexts
Source & Passage Greek Term Context Notes
Thucydides, Histories 1.5–1.8 λῃσταί Early Greek leaders and Mycenaeans engaging in piracy, seizing goods and people. Explicitly sea-raiding and abduction.
Herodotus, Histories 1.4, 1.5 λῃστής Phoenicians & Greeks abducting women (Io, Europa myths). Mythic precedent for people-trafficking as piracy.
Polybius, Histories 4.3, 4.18, 4.63 λῃστής Illyrian sea-raiders taking captives and plunder. Direct match to Caesar case.
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 16.5, 20.81 λῃσταί Coastal raids and mass abductions. Sea-based people raiding.
Plutarch, Life of Pompey 24–28 λῃσταί Cilician pirates raiding and kidnapping; Pompey’s anti-piracy campaign. Same group that took Caesar.
Plutarch, Life of Caesar 1–2 λῃσταί Caesar kidnapped by Cilician pirates, held for ransom. Most famous use.
Strabo, Geography 14.5.2 λῃσταί Cilician pirates’ operations in the Mediterranean, including human capture. Geographic detail on pirate bases.
Xenophon, Hellenica 2.1.7; Anabasis 7.8.8 λῃσταί Armed raiders plundering villages, sometimes seizing people. Small-scale but violent.
Appian, Mithridatic Wars 92 λῃσταί Pirates in Aegean and Mediterranean; kidnapping of Romans. Later Hellenistic piracy.