Piracy History!

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airangel429

This thread is about different types of piracy! big grin

Ancient Piracy

One of the oldest documents (inscription on a clay tablet) describing pirates dates back to Pharo Echnaton (1350 BC). The report mentions notorious free lance Mediterranean shipping attacks in North Africa.

Greek merchants who were trading with ports in Phoenicia and Anatolia occasionally allude casually to piracy, a classic by-product of such trading activity. There is epigraphic evidence for piracy as well: in the 340s Athens honored Cleomis, tyrant of Methymna on Lesbos, for ransoming a number of Athenians captured by pirates.

The Aethiopica one of the ancient Greek novels by Heliodorus of Emesa (3rd century AD) tells the story of an Ethiopian princess and a Thessalian prince who undergo a series of perils (battles, voyages, piracy, abductions, robbery, and torture) before their eventual happy marriage in the heroine's homeland.

Polycrates (Greek tyrant) seized control of the city of Samos during a celebration of a festival of Hera outside the city walls. After eliminating his two brothers, who had at first shared his power, he established despotism, and ships from his 100-vessel fleet committed acts of piracy that made him notorious throughout Greece.

airangel429

Contemporary Piracy

British couple was attacked, in Summer 1996, while sailing around Corfu Island (Greece) with assault rifles and grenades, months earlier armed men attacked tanker Succi when she was only few hours from Singapore. The pirates tied up the crew and put it in a life boat and sailed off. The crew was rescued but the tanker disappeared.

According to London based International Maritime Bureau, there were 224 incidents of piracy and armed robbery of ships.

According to Time Magazine article: A Plague of Pirates (Time Magazine, August 18, 1997) modern pirates operate differently depending on geographic location. Arabian Sea pirates use the most modern weapons while West Africans use knives and dugout canoes.

Brazilian pirates take advantage of the fact that Brazil does not have the Coast Guard. In the Far East piracy is controlled by organized crime and pirates kidnap the whole ships and cargo.

South China Sea is almost as dangerous place, as it was in the ancient times. Chinese pirates are perhaps the most blatant often operating under the protection of the Chinese government.

airangel429

Ushgarak

I think to say Buccaneers were only formed to fight the war of Spanish succession is a bit off, especially as just afterwards you point out they were big in the 16th and 17th centuries, when that war was 18th. I assume this is taken from a mix of sources...

To be honest, the Golden Age of piracy was done by the 18th century. Even though the really big ones like Teach operated after that, the time when travelling out west to make a living out of privateering was gone, and Teach was the exception more than the rule. The Royal Navy grew too strong in the Americas for organised Piracy to continue, and the Americans continued the trend.

airangel429

Oops...I got an UNACCURATE source then. embarrasment