Continuation of Greaco –
Roman Piracy
•Athenian Ambassadors
visiting a Persian king
•Attacked and captured
and Egyptian ship
•Brought to court in
Athens
• Defense
• Egyptians were at war with Persians and the
Athenians were allies of Persia.
• Therefore attack legal
• Court agreed but,
• ruled that the ambassadors were official
representatives of Athens
• Therefore the loot belonged to Athens not the
individual ambassadors
• City state benefitting from Piracy (?)
Human Booty
• As mentioned earlier
• One of favorite
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targets for pirates
were people
Masses sold as slaves
Important individuals
could be ransomed
Everyone was
vulnerable
Example: Plato
• Plato accepted job as instructor for the
son of tyrant of Syracuse
– Son was indifferent to education
– Plato hated tyrant
• Plato announced intention to leave
• Fearing what Plato may say about him
back in Athens tyrant arranged for his
capture by pirates
• Again state using piracy for its own ends
• Saved by a friend who happened to be at
the slave auction
• Gradually
Athens able to
rebuild its
naval strength.
• New enemy
arrived
• Philip II leader
of the
Macedonians
•Eventually Philip defeated
the Athenians in the battle
of Chaeroneia
•Forcing the Athenians to
sign a peace treaty
•Included in the treaty were
the lines:
• “those participating in the
peace may sail the sea, and
nobody may hinder them or
stop any of their ships; and if
anyone do this he is the
enemy of all participating in
this peace”
•Despite this statement
–Effectively outlawing piracy
•Piracy continued in the
Mediterranean
–Philip still had one remaining
enemy
•The Persians
•Philip’s son took the
battle to the Persians
– Alexander (“the Great”)
•Alexander put an end to
the pirate attacks
•Secured all harbors
• Under Alexander, Piracy was
controlled in the eastern
Mediterranean
• Policy did not survive his death
• Successors fought for a piece of
the empire
• Piracy reigned once more as a
tool of profit and control
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A few moments on assignments
Due 11th March
800 – 1000 word paper based on the movie
Captain Kidd and the book by Robert Ritche
I am expecting you to compare what you have
learnt about piracy of the era and Captain Kidd
specifically and the way in which the story is
told in the film
Motivation: to begin to understand the way in
which pirates have been understood (and
‘tamed’?) in later eras
www.uidaho.edu/~chambers
Cicero
Eastern shore of
Adriatic Sea ideal
location for pirate
bases.
 Many natural
harbors and coves
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◦ Offer security needed
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The Illiyrian people
took advantage
 Merchants
asked for help
 No Greek state had the power
to take action
 Rome not willing to take
action
 Only a few occasional
merchants
◦ Not worth the cost and risk
Illiyrian King took
advantage of the
situation
 united many of the
Illiyria petty kings
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◦ again ‘states’ using
freelance seaborne
warriors to their own
advantage

After his death his
queen, Queen Teuta,
continued his policy
 Queen
Teuta used the pirates in
different ways
 To harass Illyria’s enemies
 To cooperate with her navy in
‘official’ war
 Sometime to plunder (and of
course to share the booty)
 While of course always
maintaining deniability
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The pirates, like many before and after them,
turned to trickery when needed
In one city they pretended to be merchants,
idiotic merchants.
◦ After attracting a large crowd by selling goods at
low cost
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They revealed their weapons and took every
one captive and sold them into slavery
On another occasion they came ashore
carrying water jugs asking for permission to
refill them
Hidden in the jars were short swords
Plot detected and they were defeated
 Eventually
she used the pirates
to conquer the entire coast
 Hubris took hold
 Queen ordered capture of two
merchant ships from Rome
 After merchants complaints
Romans sent two envoys to
voice Rome’s concerns
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“It is an ancient
custom of the land
of the Illyians and
of its rulers that the
queen does not
interfere with the
actions of her
private citizens
taking plunder on
the sea”
Envoys reply
 “Queen Teuta, the Romans have an
excellent tradition, which is that the
state concerns itself with punishing
those who commit private wrongs and
with helping those who suffer them.
With the gods’ help we shall do our
utmost, and that very soon, to make
you reform this ancient custom of
your kings”
 Queen was furious at these words
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She arranged
for the envoys
ship to be
captured by
pirates
The envoy was
then murdered
Not a smart
move!
No matter what
her motives
According to
Rome she was
guilty
Nothing happened
 Queen Teuta assumed she had given the
Romans a sharp lesson
 ‘do not interfere’
 She sent out fleets to sieze
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◦ Epidamnus and Corcyra
Two most important trading stations for
Rome/Greek trade
 1st attack on Epidamnus failed
 Attack on Corcyra was successful
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◦ Illyians put Demetrius of Pharos in command
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They then returned to Epidamnus
 At
this moment when Epidamnus
was about to fall
 When all seemed lost
◦ When no Greek power could stand up
to Illyia
◦ When it seemed certain that Queen
Teuta would dominate and control
the western coast of Greece
A
fleet of 200 hundred Roman
ships appeared
The ships headed to Corcyra
 Demetrius
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◦ realized resistance was futile
◦ offered himself as an advisor
Fleet headed to Apolliana where it met
with a second Roman Consul had an
army of 20,000 infantry and 2,000
cavalry
 In short order the Romans defeated
the Queen put Demetrius in command
of the Illyrinas
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Piracy in Cilicia began under the
auspice of Tryphon
◦ wanted to break the hold of the Seleucid
Empire
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Encouraged Cilicians to attack
Seleucid possessions
◦ provided ships and paid crews
Tryphon was not a successful pirate
himself
 He was run aground put under siege
and committed suicide
 But he left the idea, a legacy of piracy
 And a political situation in chaos
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 Cilicians
organized into
communities led by ‘Pirate Kings’
◦ led raids throughout the whole of the
eastern Mediterranean and the
Aegean
 Slaving
was the specialty of these
groups
 They had a ready market slaves at
Delos
◦ A no questions asked island
emporium
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Eventually Rome
responded to complaints
Roman senate appointed
Marcus Antonius
(grandfather of Marc
Antony) as governor of
region that included
Cilicia
Mission: Suppress the
pirates
Antonius gained enough
plunder and inflicted
enough damage to be
granted a victory in Rome,
but he had not solved the
problem
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Rome issued statements
stating that everyone
‘must be able to sail the
seas in safety’
And appeared to have the
might and desire to stop
pirates
But then the Romans
stopped fighting pirates
and began fighting each
other – Romans vs.
Italians
And after that was settled
they had to deal with a
war with the king of
Pontus Mithridates
 Not
until Pompey the Great
arrived several years later
that Mithridates was
cornered and committed
suicide
 The pirates were isolated
 but not stopped
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The Pirates of the
Mediterranean
continued to
harass and attack
Rome
It appeared that no
region was safe
By 75 BCE the
coast of Italy was
declared unsafe
The major port city
of Ostia was
plundered
They burned a
consular fleet
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They also continued to
take captives
Including a young
Julius Caesar
The pirates demanded
a ransom of 20 Talents
◦ (About $200,000)
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Caesar laughed at this
and told them to
demand at least 50
Talents
 Caesar
exercised and competed
against the pirates
 He recited poetry he had written if
the didn’t appreciate it he told them
they were “ignorant barbarians”
 When tired he would tell them to be
quiet why he took a nap
 And, to their laughs, he told them
that when free he would return and
crucify them all
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After he was freed, Caesar
commandeered a fleet and returned to
the pirates lair captured them all
When the local magistrates were a little
slow in handing out punishment
Caesar took them and crucified them all
But because of his ‘compassionate’
nature, once he had seen them on the
crucifix
He quickly dispatched them by slashing
their throats
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Romans, like many nations after them,
attempted to use public displays to scare
people away from piracy
They publicly
◦ Beheaded pirates
◦ Crucified pirates
◦ Fed them to wild beasts
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A Turkish pirate was turned slowly on a spit
for three hours and roasted to death
And as we shall see Captain Kidd was hung in
chains on the banks of the River Thames
And…….
 It
is also from piracy of this era
that we can find the possible
antecedent of the myth of walking
the plank
 When capturing ships the pirates
would ask if any aboard were
Roman
 If answered in the affirmative, the
pirates, would feign fear, and
dress the individual in the finest
clothes on board
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After cowering before the Roman they
would announce
“oh, no, a Roman? We must see that you
are delivered from off our ship as soon
as possible”
Then insisted that the Roman climb a
ladder and jump overboard
If unwilling, they would, ‘help’ the
Roman
Piracy continued to grow
Trade stopped and shortages hit Rome
Eventually Pompey the Great persuaded
the Roman Senate to give him supreme
command of all forces an led a
concerted attack
 He dispatched numerous fleets to
different area to tie up the pirates in
local conflict
 At the same time he moved his main
fleet from location to location
destroying the now isolate pirates
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In approximately four months Pompey
 Captured 71 Ships
 Accepted surrender of 300 more
 Took cities, forts, and places of refuge
 And was responsible for the death of
10,000 pirates
 He also looked to root causes
 Settled the remaining captives on land
throughout the empire
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 After
the fall of Roman Empire the
Mediterranean was once again
open to pirates
 However, the end of the empire
also dramatically reduced the
amount of trade
 Therefore taking away the
motivation for the pirates
A voyage to a far land with booty awaiting a man
and this smell in his nostrils, is a good a lot as
could be desired, and a sure cure for age and
sorrow. It is strange that we Northmen, who know
this and are more skillful seamen than other men,
sit at home as much as we do, when we have the
whole world to plunder
Toke
 One
possible reason for the
commencement of piratical activity
among the Viking
 Was therefore the pressure from
Charlemagne to the south
 Additional motivation can be found
in
 Changing climate
 It was becoming drier and colder
which affected agricultural
production
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At the same time the birthrate was
heading upward
◦ Producing more men than the land could
support
Local warfare gave men the
opportunity to fight
 When the conflicts were settled
numerous young, battle hardened,
warriors were forced leave their homes
to seek their fortune
 They turned to the sea and raiding
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Technology was what allowed these young
men to be successful
The best example of these development is
the Gokstad Ship
The Gokstad ship was uncovered from a
burial mound in south-western Norway in
1880
 Built around 850
 77 feet long
 17 feet wide
 6.5 feet deep
 After it had been used for several years it
provided the setting for a royal funeral
 Burial or funeral pyre were the chosen
types of funeral
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The ship was dragged just under two miles
inland and lowered into a deep trench
The king was laid in the boat
Mourners and/or family surrounded him
with weapons and personal possessions
And a number of slaughtered animals
including
◦ 12 horses
◦ 6 dogs
◦ 1 peacock
The king and the boat were then buried and
the location became known as Kongshagen
or King’s Mound
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What made this ship, and others like it, so
effective was
The ships were small and easily
maneuvered
They were fast and could cross open ocean
They could be portaged over short
distances
They could be beached on any level shore
The two-prowed design allowed a quick
launch
They had a large sail and oar holes
The Gokstad ship had 32 oars but 64 shields
 In
1893 a replica of the Gokstad
ship was built and sailed from
Bergen in Norway to America
 To take part in the Chicago World’s
Fair
 Leaving on April 30th
 A Crew of 12 with
◦ 2 chronometers
◦ Spare rigging
◦ And 1000 bottles of beer
 In
four weeks it arrived in America
• Earliest report of Viking attack on England was in
A.D. 787.
 “This year King Bertric
took Edburga the
daughter of Offa to
wife. And in his days
came first three ships
of the Northmen from
the land of robbers.”
 But a more famous
attack occurred in 793
 At this time the
monastery of
Lindisfarne ‘the holy
island’ was attacked
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Attacks reported in the Anglo- Saxon
Chronicles
Originally compiled on the orders of King
Alfred the Great, approximately A.D. 890
Maintained by anonymous scribes until the
12th Century.
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A.D. 793. This year came dreadful forewarnings over the land of the Northumbrians,
terrifying the people most woefully: these
were immense sheets of light rushing
through the air, and whirlwinds, and fiery,
dragons flying across the firmament. These
tremendous tokens were soon followed by a
great famine: and not long after, on the sixth
day before the ides of January in the same
year, the harrowing inroads of heathen men
made lamentable havoc in the church of God
in Holy-island, by rapine and slaughter.
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Lindisfarne one of several monasteries that
prospered after introduction of Christianity by St.
Augustine in the late 6th Century
They became locations of wealth
◦ Religious artifacts of gold and silver
Locations of religious
◦ Bones of saints in reliquaries
They were the sites of high learning
◦ illuminated manuscripts
Lindisfarne had produced the famous Lindisfarne
Gospels in the 690s
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The raid was a classic pirate attack
◦ Surprise
◦ Speed
◦ Devastation
◦ Quick retreat
It was also a complete shock and shattering to
both local and wider community
Churches all over Europe had been built by the
sea in the belief that they were safe from sea
attack
Confirmation of this belief comes in a letter
from the Scholar Alcuin, working at the time in
the court of Charlemagne, to the king of
Northumbria
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Lo, it is nearly 350
years that we and our
forefathers have
inhabited this most
lovely land, and never
has such terror
appeared in Britain as
we have now suffered
from a pagan race; nor
was it thought that
such an inroad from
the sea could be made
[or such a sea-disaster
could happen]
Obviously these ideas were now out dated
 With new technology such as the Gokstad
ship defense by the sea became defeat by
the sea
 If we know the mentality that led the
monasteries to be built in such locations
 Can we uncover the mentality that went
along with the new technology and free
time that prompted the Vikings to attack?
 One possible way is to look the name
‘Viking’
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For Europeans the word may have come to
define a people but for those people it was an
act or descriptor rather than a nationality
Possibly from an Old Norse word vik
◦ Meaning ‘bay or creek’
Possibly from Old English wic
◦ Meaning military camp or trading post
Therefore a ‘Viking’ was someone who kept a
ship in a bay for raiding or trading
By 12th C Viking = pirate raid Landnámabók
Book of Settlements
 We
can also look at the gods
religion and mythology that
informed the Vikings
 The
Norse gods orÆsir lived in
a heaven called Ásgarõur
 They had migrated to
Scandanavia in ancient times as
a tribe led by a chieftain Óðin
 Óðin
– the All-Father and the
lord of the slain
 The cult of Óðin was dark,
sacrificial, and doomed
 Whole armies would be
sacrificed to him
 On his shoulders were two
ravens Huginn and Muninn
(mind and memory)
 Birds of carrion who scavenged
the battlefield
In Ásgarõur he had
a location Valhöll
(incorrectly
translated as
Valhalla)
 It was here that
fallen warriors spent
a lifetime feasting
and fighting before
the ‘Last Battle’
which would spell
the Doom of the
Gods (Ragnarök)

Thór
Frey
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The Thunderer (the most venerated god)
Patron of seamen and farmers (as opposed to
the elite Óðin)
Huge, red beard, red hair, and red eyes
God of the sky, ruler of storms and tempests
Weilder of thunderbolts
Guard of the world, defeanding it from Giants
beyond civilization with a mighty hammer
Mjöllnir
As well as a symbol of violence it was also a
fertility emblem
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Frey often
associated with his
twin sister Freyja
Frey controlled rain
and sunshine
Therefore controlled
the production of
the earth
And in case you
missed it in the first
showing he was also
the God of Fertility
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The Hunninge Stone
Top: dead warrior
receiving free
transport to Valhalla
on Sleipnir, Óðin’s
8-legged steed
 Middle: Viking
Longship on a raid
 Bottom: Norseman
as farmer
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We can also find hints on mentality in sagas and poetry
E.g. Hávamál
This poem contains numerous maxims to live by
Self-help book for Vikings
“Look carefully round doorways before you walk in;
you never know when an enemy might be there”
“Never part with your weapons when out in the fields;
you never know when you will need your spear”
“wealth dies, kinsmen die, a man himself must likewise
die; but word-fame never dies, for him who achieves
him well”
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Word- fame
The idea that your deeds will live on beyond
you also introduced another aspect to Viking
life
◦ And to piracy beyond this point
Bjorn Ironside
◦ never injured in battle
Eric Blood Axe
◦ killed four brothers to become King
Sven Forked-Beard
◦ had a forked beard
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Ivar Boneless
◦ never had any Children