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Without its policing influence, piracy grew rampant even in the eastern Mediterranean. Defense from pirates is frequently given as one of the reasons for cities to set up honorific decrees for individuals, as with the c. 166 BCE decree from Imbros: "Lysanias is benevolent towards the people […] he stood firm and brought news of the descent of ...
The Greek civil wars of 1824–1825 and the decline of the Hellenic Navy made the Aegean quickly become a haven for pirates who sometimes doubled as privateers. American merchant vessels were attacked and so the Mediterranean Squadron began escort and patrol duties. The operations terminated in 1828, as piracy ceased. [1] [2]
Most pirates in this era were of Welsh, English, Dutch, Irish, and French origin. Many pirates came from poorer urban areas in search of a way to make money and of reprieve. London in particular was known for high unemployment, crowding, and poverty which drove people to piracy. Piracy also offered power and quick riches. [citation needed]
The wars were largely a reaction to piracy by the Barbary states. Since the 16th century, North African pirates had captured ships and even raided European coastal areas across the Mediterranean Sea. Originally starting out with the goal of capturing individuals for the domestic North African slave trade, the focus later shifted to kidnapping ...
Jasón, a Jewish archer on the prow of a pirate ship (a painting from Jason's Tomb). Jewish pirates were Jewish people who engaged in piracy.While there is some mention of the phenomenon in antiquity, especially during the Hasmonean period (c. 140–37 BCE), most Jewish pirates were Sephardim who operated in the years following the Alhambra Decree of 1492 ordering the expulsion of Iberia's Jews.
Cilician pirates dominated the Mediterranean Sea from the 2nd century BC until their suppression by Pompey in 67–66 BC. Because there were notorious pirate strongholds in Cilicia, on the southern coast of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), the term "Cilician" was long used to generically refer to any pirates in the Mediterranean.
Their empire was centered on this sea and all the area was full of commerce and naval development. For the first time in history, an entire sea (the Mediterranean) was free of piracy. For several centuries, the Mediterranean was a "Roman Lake", surrounded on all sides by the empire. The empire began to crumble in the 3rd century.
In the ancient Mediterranean, galley rowers were mostly free men, and slaves were used as rowers when manpower was in high demand. In the Middle Ages and the early modern period, convicts and prisoners of war often manned galleys, and the Barbary pirates enslaved captives as galley slaves. During the 18th and 19th centuries, pirates in Asia ...