The Mediterranean had at this time fallen into the hands of pirates, largely from Cilicia. Rome had destroyed many of the states that had previously policed the Mediterranean with fleets, but had failed to step into the gap created. The pirates had seized the opportunity of a relative power vacuum and had not only strangled shipping lanes but had plundered many cities on the coasts of Greece and Asia, and had even made descents upon Italy itself. After the Roman admiral Marcus Antonius Creticus (father of the triumvir Marcus Antonius) failed to clear the pirates to the satisfaction of the Roman authorities, Pompey was nominated his successor as commander of a special naval task force to campaign against them. It supposedly took Pompey just forty days to clear the western portion of the western Mediterranean of pirates, and restore communication between Iberia, Africa, and Italy. Plutarch describes how Pompey first swept their craft from the Mediterranean in a series of small actions and through the promise of honouring the surrender of cities and craft. He then followed the main body of the pirates to their strongholds on the coast of Cilicia, and destroyed them there in the naval Battle of Korakesion.