Sezar, Pharmacusa yakınlarında denizde korsanlar tarafından esir alınmış. Korsanlar 20 talent fidye istemiş. Sezar, esirlerinin ne kadar değerli olduğunu anlamadıklarını söylemiş, alay etmiş, 50 talent ödemeyi teklif etmiş. Etrafındakileri para toplamaya yollamış, bu sırada da korsanlarla esir olarak yaşamış 38 gün boyunca, bayağı küçümsemiş ama korsanları. Uykusu geldiğinde susmalarını söylemiş, onlarla egzersiz yapmış, oyunlarına katılmış. Yazdıklarını ve konuşmalarını onlara okumuş, beğenmeyenlere illiterate ve barbar demiş. Sık sık onları çarmıha germekle tehdit etmiş. Fidye toplanıp serbest bırakıldıktan sonra da geri dönüp yakalamış korsanları. Asya valisi ve praetor Junius'a teslim etmiş cezalandırması için. Junius ali cengiz oyunlarına girişince geri almış korsanları ve hepsini çarmıha germiş. Berbat bir esir gerçekten.
After a short stay there with Nicomedes, the king, in his passage back he was taken near the island Pharmacusa by some of the pirates, who, at that time, with large fleets of ships and innumerable smaller vessels infested the seas everywhere.
When these men at first demanded of him twenty talents for his ransom, he laughed at them for not understanding the value of their prisoner, and voluntarily engaged to give them fifty. He presently dispatched those about him to several places to raise the money, till at last he was left among a set of the most bloodthirsty people in the world, the Cilicians, only with one friend and two attendants. Yet he made so little of them, that when he had a mind to sleep, he would send to them, and order them to make no noise. For thirty-eight days, with all the freedom in the world, he amused himself with joining in their exercises and games, as if they had not been his keepers, but his guards. He wrote verses and speeches, and made them his auditors, and those who did not admire them, he called to their faces illiterate and barbarous, and would often, in raillery, threaten to hang them. They were greatly taken with this, and attributed his free talking to a kind of simplicity and boyish playfulness. As soon as his ransom was come from Miletus, he paid it, and was discharged, and proceeded at once to man some ships at the port of Miletus, and went in pursuit of the pirates, whom he surprised with their ships still stationed at the island, and took most of them. Their money he made his prize, and the men he secured in prison at Pergamus, and made application to Junius, who was then governor of Asia, to whose office it belonged, as praetor, to determine their punishment. Junius, having his eye upon the money, for the sum was considerable, said he would think at his leisure what to do with the prisoners, upon which Caesar took his leave of him, and went off to Pergamus, where he ordered the pirates to be brought forth and crucified; the punishment he had often threatened them with whilst he was in their hands, and they little dreamed he was in earnest.