Mediterranean Trade Routes by Micklos John Jr.;

Author:Micklos, John, Jr.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cavendish Square Publishing LLC

Marco Polo’s travels to China helped spark trade that shaped the Mediterranean region for centuries.

Pirates

Trade across the seas brought wealth. It brought ships laden with gold, silk, spices, and other precious cargo. It also brought pirates. Pirates have threatened merchant ships ever since the beginning of ocean trade; this held true in the Mediterranean Sea as well.

An Egyptian clay tablet from the fourteenth century BCE detailed how pirates attacked ships near the coast of Egypt. Furthermore, pirates did not restrict their activities to the open seas. They sometimes attacked port cities as well. They pillaged goods and captured slaves. Sometimes cities paid tributes to the pirates so that they would stay away. However, this practice simply made the pirates richer, bolder, and even more powerful.

Not everyone considered pirates to be a menace. In many areas, pirates were considered “hunters” rather than thieves. One Greek historian noted that among some groups, employment as a pirate “did not yet involve any disgrace, but rather brought with it somewhat of glory.” Even the mighty Roman Empire tolerated pirates because they brought a steady stream of captured slaves to Roman ports. Also, fear of pirates created an unsteady market for goods such as grain. This kept prices high, which benefited those who sold it.

The most feared pirates of all were the Barbary pirates, who roamed the Mediterranean, primarily along the coast of northern Africa near Morocco, Algeria, and Libya. Pirates had operated in the region for centuries, but the Barbary pirates reached the height of their power in the 1600s. They terrorized merchant ships and towns along the North African coast, but they went farther afield as well, conducting raids up the Atlantic Ocean as far north as Ireland and even Iceland. Piracy continued in the area until the early 1800s.

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