Piracy: Lessons From the Past

Abstract

Piracy has remained quintessentially the same from its inception to the present day. As piracy has reached all time heights in the past decade since the defeat of the Barbary pirates, there has been much research done in the area of piracy and finding solutions to this age old problem. Modern schools of pirate studies have all but ignored ancient history as a source in this search for a solution. This work outlines the characteristics of piracy in the ancient world, the laws developed in reaction to this menace, and the successful tactics and strategies employed by ancient civilizations in combating this terror which hails from time immemorial. These characteristics, laws, and methods will then be compared to modern piracy, showing the similarities between them and the possibilities for solutions to be incorporated in our present day.