Economic activity, maritime trade and piracy in the Hellenistic Aegean

Abstract

This paper questions the traditional belief that Hellenistic piracy was the destructive counterpart of shipping trade as well as the view that there existed an altogether negative relationship between piracy and the naval power who ought to have worked or did work towards its suppression. In particular, it argues (1) that the merchant, the pirate and the naval prostates were tangled into an intricate relationship of mutual dependence ; and (2) that both the pirates and the naval prostates were psychologically and practically parts of a single, long- lasting historical structure, the « raid mentality », a structure which essentially represented a specific mode of economic activity.