Origin of "rape and pillage"
OED has rape and pillage from 1817:
1817 J. M. Scott Blue Lights Notes 143 To stimulate the avarice, lust, and barbarity of the English soldiery, he had promised, that on the capture of the city, three days should be allowed, for the purposes of rape and pillage.
Its definition is ambiguous in distinguishing exactly what is meant by rape in that phrase:
rape and pillage: the commission of acts of rape and plunder on a large scale, esp. by members of an invading army. Hence in extended use: despoilment, destruction, or defilement of something, esp. for profit.
However, one might look at the history of the word since OED is a historical dictionary. The sense in the past (when the word first appeared in the fourteenth or fifteenth century) was one of carrying-off:
- The act of taking something by force; esp. the seizure of property by violent means; robbery, plundering. Also as a count noun: an instance of this, a robbery, a raid. Now rare (chiefly archaic and literary).
Esp. in later use probably frequently influenced by the use of sense 3, particularly its use in the titles of works of art or literature.
- The act of carrying off a person by force; esp. the abduction of a woman, usually for the purpose of sexual violation. Also figurative. Now archaic.
In later use chiefly with reference to events of classical mythology and history, esp. in the titles of works of art, etc.
Closely allied to sense 2a and sometimes with the implication of actual sexual violence.
- a. Originally and chiefly: the act or crime, committed by a man, of forcing a woman to have sexual intercourse with him against her will, esp. by means of threats or violence. In later use more generally: the act of forced, non-consenting, or illegal sexual intercourse with another person; sexual violation or assault.
The precise legal definition of rape has varied over time and between legal systems...
The earliest use they have of sense 2a comes from 1425, so the two related but separable meanings of forced intercourse and carrying-off (perhaps with the intention of forced intercourse) have co-existed for centuries. Anciently, rape meant kidnapping or abduction (cf. the Rape of the Sabine Women, Sabinae raptae) but when Shakespeare wrote The Rape of Lucrece the meaning had progressed towards the modern sense.