History of Piracy

Thanks to literature and movies, when we think about piracy, most of us either think of the swashbuckling pirates of the golden age or some guy copying DVD’s in the back of his mom’s garage. In fact, if we were to take definition of piracy: “Piracy is typically an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea. The term can include acts committed on land, in the air, or in other major bodies of water or on a shore;” then we can conclude that historical records of seaborne piracy date back over 3000 years and are still continuing today.

According to Krzysztof Wilczynski’s “Introduction to Piracy” , the common use of the word piracy is actually fairly modern, with its first popular usage occurring around the turn of the seventeenth century, despite the fact that reports of piracy are evident as far back as the Egyptians and can be found in Greek and Roman myths. There are indeed various mentions of pirates in the works of William Shakespeare, supporting the theory that the word became popular during the Renaissance.

Wilczynski claims that “peirato,” an early form of the word pirate, was used by Polybius, a Roman historical writing around the time of 140 BC and that Plutarch, a Greek Historian, wrote about pirates around 100 AD when he describe the antics of pirates attacking ships and ports. Homer’s Iliad and The Odyssey also make mention of piracy.

Many fans of the Golden Age of Piracy, Captain Hook and Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow may be surprised to hear that the Danes provide perhaps the earliest records of large scale organized piracy and privateers who terrorized the seas. During the ninth and eleventh century, norse riders or Vikings were known as “sea thieves” and outlaws, bringing about the need for an anti-piracy legislation in many counties.

A grey area of piracy came about when governments and monarchs began to give rights to pirates to attack and plunder enemy ships in the name of their country (or monarch). The term privateer therefore became popular during times of war to mark this distinction between outlaw pirates and pirates with permission from their governments. In either case, if caught by their enemy, the privateers would be treated like a pirate and punished accordingly.

Today, piracy still exists in some form, (and not just the pirate ships you see on vacation). Cases of pirate attacks are still reported around the shores of certain developing countries, with the most famous being the Somali pirates.

It sounds interesting while reading about all this. One starts to imagine the life of pirates and fantasize their living. Well a glimpse of pirate life can be experienced if you board a Pirate Ship Cruise at St. Pete Beach FL. Become a pirate for a day and enjoy your holiday with your near and dear ones. The memories that you would make will be memorable.