Okay, so I kinda skipped math today, but I spent a long time researching ancient piracy in and around the Mediterranean. For my research paper. On pirates. Go me. Anyway, it's fascinating. There were huge pirate confederacies all through the first millenium BC, up until the rise of the Roman Empire. Like, HUGE. The Aetolian League was a huge organization of pirates that acted as mercenaries, and then later Cicilia was a pirate base, and Cicilian pirates are possibly the largest known confederation of pirates in ancient history. These were all really nasty guys, of course, but being who I am, I find it fascinating.
A PIRATE IS...
a person who attacks and robs ships at sea.
a person who appropriates or reproduces the work of another for profit without permission, usually in contravention of patent or copyright
a person or organization that broadcasts radio or television programs without official authorization
So really, is a pirate anyone who goes around pillaging and taking what doesn't belong to them, or is it specifically sea-based? Really, people like the Vikings could qualify as pirates if the definition were broadened. Whereas if you use terms like...
A CORSAIR
a privateer, esp. one operating along the southern coast of the Mediterranean in the 17th century.
another name for a pirate, from the Latin word for race, cursus. Corsairs were also known as racers and tended to use small vessels to attack, often ships much larger than theirs.
originally applied to the piractical ships of the North African Barbary states, but in English usage was often exptended to include any enemy privateer.
so a PRIVATEER is...
an armed ship owned and officered by private individuals holding a government commission and authorized for use in war, esp. in the capture of enemy merchant shipping.
a commander or crew member of such a ship, often regarded as a pirate.
Okay, so if you use a more specific term, such as corsair, privateer, or possibly freebooter, scallywag, buccaneer, do you mean pirate more specifically than you do when you SAY pirate?
Though really, this is all contemplation, because there's no way I'm doing a paper on everything that could remotely be conceived as being piracy throughout the history if the world. It would be, like, a million pages long. So it's fun to contemplate but I'll be sticking to the sea raiders definition. Heh.
[Added through a glass darkly to links, Valera Elenhathel from A-U's blog, and her NaNoWriMo journal. Very good, people should read]
~Sil
"Use the force, Harry!"
3 comments:
I wish there was more in my school stuff about them. Like, I was just reading about Pompey earlier and it mentions how he had to deal with pirates for the Roman government. However, it doesn't say anything about the pirates. I'd love to see your essay when you're done, it's a fascenating subject.
I'm assuming you mean "fascinating" there, Josh? muahaha.
So Amy, I'm at school doing a Photoshop tutorial in computer class, and I came across this line:
"Zoom: Press (Ctrl and +) to zoom in. Press (Ctrl and -) to zoom out. This is very useful if you're a bit of a pixel pirate :)"
it made me giggle and think of you, so naturally, I came to your blog to post it. Then when I saw what your most recent post was about... i giggled more, much to the dismay of my poor puzzled classmates. :P
haha. Pirates. Hmmmm....as you probably already know, I don't really like them :P
Well, I like PoTC, of course, but that's not exactly realistic...lol. Gah. The idea that at least some of my ancestors were probably robbers/murderers isn't really the nicest idea ever, at least not to me. Buut, I do have some info for you...:D I think. Hope it helps anyway. It's in my Ducth History books, so I just translated it. Don't mind the (many) typos :P
Zeerovers- attack every ship that's worth it, don't mind nationalities etc. Merciless, throw survivors in sea, or just kill them right away. Plain old robbers.
- Kapers- that's probably the dutch version of privateer
-Boekaniers - that's somewhat more interesting. :P Ok..: Mainly Dutch, English and French adventurers, escaped prisoners and slaves that wandered around on the Caribbean, sometimes robbing other ships to stay alive. Tortuga was one of their havens, they had their own "country" - they called it democratically inspired. Governments sometimes hired boekaniers. Not every Zeerover was a Boekanier, and not every boekanier was a Zeerover.
- Vrijbuiters( I found the translation! Freebooter! :D) ; completely independent pirates, don't have any code (like Boekaniers). Some were merciful, some were super cruel. Boekeniers hated them and several groups of Boekaniers were constantly trying to kill these "unethical" pirates.
- Corsairs - my book says...something different :P French privateers from Saint-Malo, the "pirate city" ( hey! I've been there!:D It's AWESOME! Enormous walls, many ships, medieval city...fairy-tale like...anyway..:P) Also; Turkish corsairs aka North African Corsairs. These Zeerovers ( I'll stick to that, since it's more specific) did not only rob, but also attacked ships from Christian lands in the later Middle Ages, ( religion issue)
Hope that helped :D I'm sort of buried under books about it, since it's part of the heritage here. Uhm, read; the reason why our Queen is well...that rich is mainly because of her ancestors' privateers :P
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