Piracy is an ancient craft of maritime robbery that has existed as long as people can sail on the sea. Pirates are mentioned in the Odyssey, an epic poem dating back to the 8th century BC. Although the word “pirate” has ancient Greek origin and means a risky person, piracy is much older than the Greek concept. The peoples of the sea are considered among the oldest pirates; it is a group of tribes of unknown origin who sailed to the Middle East and for several decades plundered all the cities there.
The Decline of the Bronze Age and the Legacy of the Sea Peoples
Only the Egyptian pharaoh had the strength to defeat the peoples of the sea in the battle at the Nile Delta, but this did not save Egypt or its neighbors from the decline known in history as the Bronze Age collapse. Despite this, the descendants of the peoples of the sea finally settled on these lands, giving rise to new peoples. Historians still cannot determine where the peoples of the sea come from; they are considered to be either inhabitants of Asia Minor or inhabitants of the Apennine Peninsula.
Pirates and Psychological Impact: The Complex Named After the Oldest Pirate King
From psychology, we know the term “pirates” complex, meaning an anxious state of the person because of his own successes. But few people know that it was named after a pirate, which historians rightly call the oldest pirate king. The tyrant from the island of Samos, Piracy, built his own fleet and began attacking ships sailing on the Sea of Marmara. The clever excuse for his sea robbery was that all captured trophies were actually gifts from Apollo.
Piracy’s Rise and Fall: The Fate of the Pirate King and His Fleet
Piracy’s power grew rapidly so that he even began to build tiers of ships with three rows of oars on board. No Greek polis then had the money or resources to make a fleet of such ships. In 525 BC, the Persian king Cambyses II hired Piracy’s fleet in the war against Egypt, but the pirate lord defected to the Egyptians, who paid him more. The following year, the Spartans tried to put an end to the pirate layer, but Piracy was able to buy them off, without forgetting to deceive the Spartans. Lydian satrap Orus was able to finally deal with the pirate king; he convinced him that he was preparing an uprising against the Persians, lured him to negotiate, captured, and executed him.
Etruscan Pirates and Their Suppression by Rome
After that, Piracy was captured by the Persians. For the Greeks, piracy was not limited to the robbers of Piracy. Back then, active Etruscan pirates, which the Greeks called Tyrrhenians, already acted. The centers of Etruscan pirates were the cities of Spina, Ortona, and Papilonia. Only the Romans were able to suppress the Etruscan pirates; they simply conquered the lands of the Etruscans.
Illyrian Pirates: From King Agron I to Queen Teuta’s Defiance of Rome
But the most famous pirates of antiquity were the Illyrians. The first tyrant of Corinth, Kylus, had to make a march to the island of Corfu to knock out the pirates. Although the expedition was considered a success, his son, Periander, also had to drive the pirates off the island. The Illyrians, who lived on barren lands, concentrated all their life around the sea. Using lightweight ships, they made the Adriatic Sea the most dangerous place for seafaring.
The Illyrian Kingdom’s Piracy and Roman Response: Agron I to Demetrius of Pharos
One of the Illyrian kings, Agron I, took pirates under royal guardianship. This allowed him not only to establish the kingdom of Illyria but also to sack Greece, Macedonia, and Aegyria. The king of Aegyria even agreed to pay tribute to the Illyrians so that they would stop looting his lands.
The wife of Agron I, Queen Teuta, who ruled after his death, particularly distinguished herself because of her protection of Illyrian pirates. When the Roman ambassadors asked her to punish the pirates for robbing the Roman coast, the queen replied that piracy in Illyria was legal and there was no reason to punish the pirates.
Moreover, she gave an order to kill the ambassadors and started a war with Rome. Although the war began because of Teuta’s protection of the pirates, the Illyrians lost because of the treason of the pirate leader Demetrius of Pharos. In gratitude, the Romans made him the new ruler of Illyria.
Demetrius remained faithful to the pirate business and devoted his entire reign to sea robbery. But when he plundered the allies of Rome, the Romans declared war on him. This time, they not only defeated the king’s troops but also destroyed all the pirate gangs they met. This made the Adriatic Sea much safer.
Cilician Pirates and the Roman Campaigns of Pompey
In the first century BC, Cilicia became a pirate center. Local pirates adopted Illyrian ships and in a short time settled almost all along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Even Julius Caesar was captured by Cilician pirates in his youth.
Spartacus conspired with Cilician pirates to transport his army of slaves to Sicily during his rebellion. However, the Cilician pirates took the freight charge and did not arrive. Thus, Spartacus and his army were trapped by the Romans.
To defeat the Cilician pirates, the Romans organized several campaigns, but they were unsuccessful. Eventually, the problem of pirates was solved by Pompey. He divided the Roman fleet into 13 units and sent them out to patrol the entire Mediterranean coast. After that, he began pursuing the pirates at the head of 60 ships, driving pirate ships to the point where the Roman fleet had already waited for them.
He drove the biggest pirate gangs to Cape Corum, where they were defeated. In the three months of the war, Pompey destroyed more than a thousand pirate ships and captured another 400 as a trophy. It would seem that the piracy dilemma had been brought to an end, but soon after, Sicily became the new center of piracy.
Sicilian Pirates and the Fall of Sextus Pompey
Ironically, the most famous of the Sicilian pirates was the son of Pompey, Sextus Pompey. He seized all of Sicily and from there robbed the surrounding lands. Gaius Octavius, who was the future Emperor Octavian Augustus, attempted to retake the island, but Sextus and his pirate flotilla defeated the Roman fleet. Only the Roman commander Marcus Agrippa managed to disrupt the pirate state in Sicily. He built a new fleet for this purpose. Sextus Pompey tried to hide in Miletus, but there he was killed. Thanks to this, the Mediterranean Sea became free of pirates for a long time.
The Impact of Arab Conquests on Mediterranean Piracy
The changes came with Arab conquests. Having borrowed their ships from the Byzantines, the Arabs quickly captured the islands in the Mediterranean, turning them into new centers for piracy, the largest of which was the island of Crete. The brigandage spread to the Balearic Islands; they were recaptured from the Visigoths not by the army of the Arab Caliph but by the Moorish pirates, whom the Arabs expelled from the African coast in 846. These pirates robbed Rome in the following years. They settled in Liguria from where they captured several mountain passages across the Alps.
The Decline of Arab Piracy and the Rise of New Rivals
The most famous Muslim pirate was the Greek Leo of Tripoli, who led the Corsair pirates and in 904 plundered Thessalonica. However, he lived in the years when Arab piracy was coming to an end and was therefore the last of the Arab pirates. The main reason was that the Byzantines intensified the counteraction against the pirates and also the appearance of a more formidable rival in the sea.
The Viking Age: Maritime Raids and the Rise of Scandinavian Pirates
Seafaring flourished in Scandinavia as early as the fifth century. The tribes of Jutes and Angles migrated to Britain, but the influence of the Scandinavians on the history of Europe began later and was so strong that historians even distinguish it as the age of the Vikings. It is interesting that at first the word “Vikings” stood for a raiding campaign in the Viking society, and only with time did they begin to name people who went on such campaigns. Having no unified country, the Scandinavians lived as clans.
Viking Expansion and Raids: From Lindisfarne to the Mediterranean
The infertility of the land forced them to take up maritime affairs. The fjords were the best place in Europe to take over the sea. Thanks to them, ships which worked equally well on the rivers and on the open sea were invented. The age of the Vikings began with the attack on the island of Lindisfarne, where the Christian monastery was situated. Originally, the Vikings most often attacked monasteries and churches because there were treasures and there was no significant protection, although they did not hesitate to attack ordinary villages.
The Viking Raid Legacy: From Paris and Lisbon to the Mediterranean
Vikings attacked not only British people; they also targeted Scots, Irish, Franks, and even Arabs in Spain. In 794, the Vikings plundered the monastery on the island of St. Columba. In 815, they ransacked the French coast for the first time, taking advantage of the fact that the Frankish king was at war with his brothers. In 821, the Vikings captured the Isle of Sheppey. Then they changed tactics and began to seize land to loot the surrounding territories from them. After a while, in 841, the Vikings settled at the mouth of the Seine and began to climb the river, robbing the surrounding towns.
The End of Viking Raids and the New Age of Piracy
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 845 | They even besieged Paris, lifting the siege only for the gold paid by the Frankish king. |
| 844 | The Vikings robbed Lisbon, which was then an Arab city. |
| 850 | Six years later, they passed Gibraltar for the first time, having appeared in the Mediterranean Sea. |
| Following years | They plundered the coasts of Spain, Italy, and Sicily. |
| – | It was the Vikings who destroyed most of the Arab pirates and took their loot and ships by force. |
| – | For this, they received from the Arabs the name “Mayus.” |
| 860 | The semi-legendary Búi the Brave gained fame as the Viking robbing people alongside the Mediterranean Sea. |
| 860 | Búi robbed Pisa and asked the bishop to bring him the treasures of the city in exchange for the freedom of its inhabitants. |
| – | However, Búi didn’t believe the bishop’s promises and instead plundered the city. |
The Decline of Viking Raids and the Rise of New Pirates in the Modern Age
Despite their reputation as raiders, the Vikings eventually stopped their robbery campaigns. Their main goal was to establish colonies and kingdoms, so they began to settle in newly conquered territories. Their activity ended in England in 1016 with the death of King Cnut. He succeeded in forging a kingdom uniting the Danes and the Anglo-Saxons. The formation of the Danish kingdom and the consolidation of new territories led to the decline of Viking raids. Despite this, the end of the Viking Age did not mark the end of piracy. The beginning of the modern age brought new pirates.