Marcus Antonius Creticus

Crete  had fallen into a pattern of combative city-states, harboring pirates, during the Classical and Hellenistic periods.

Gortyn, …

…Kydonia (Chania) and …

…Lyttos had challenged the primacy of …

…ancient Knossos, preyed upon one another, and invited into their feuds mainland powers like Macedon and its rivals Rhodes and Ptolemaic Egypt, a situation that all but invited Roman interference.

Ierapytna (Ierapetra), a Dorian city in continual rivalry with Praisos, the last Minoan city in the island, had gained supremacy on eastern Crete in the Classical Age.

Hierapytna was later notorious in the third century BCE for its tendency to piracy and had taken part in the Cretan War along with other Cretan cities in the side of Philip V of Macedon against Knossos and Rhodes.

Crete according to Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus was aiding Mithridates VI, king of Pontus, by supplying him with mercenaries in the first century BCE.

Mithridates, intent on halting the advance of Roman hegemony in the Aegean, is at war with the Romans for the third time, and Rome is having a difficult time with him.

The Cretans also contribute to and are in alliance with the pirates of the Mediterranean, which represent a terrible problem at this time; they add the risk of kidnapping to sailing, they pilfer grain from shipments to Rome, and they attack ports.

Marcus Antonius, father of the famous Mark Antony, sends legates to Crete concerning their involvement with Mithridates and the pirates; the Cretans dismiss the matter, and a war begins.

Marcus Antonius, elected praetor in 74 BCE, had received an extraordinary commission, similar to that bestowed upon triumvir Pompey by the Gabinian law years later and on his father three decades before, to clear the Mediterranean Sea of the threat of piracy, and thereby assist the operations against Mithridates on the pretext that Knossos was backing Mithridates,

Antonius had not only failed in the task, but plundered the provinces he was supposed to protect from robbery.

He attacked the Cretans, who had made an alliance with the pirates, but had been totally defeated, most of his ships being sunk.

Diodorus Siculus states that he only saved himself by a disgraceful treaty.

As a result of this defeat he is mockingly given the byname Creticus, which means "conqueror of Crete", and also "man made of chalk", when translated from Latin.

He dies soon afterwards (72 BCE - 71 BCE) in Crete.

Most authorities agree as to his avarice and incompetence, but the biographer Plutarch describes him as friendly, honest and generous man.