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Piracy in the Graeco-Roman World. By Philip de Souza. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-521-48137-6. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Indexes. Pp. x, 276. $59.95.
This is a book on piracy as a political issue in the diplomatic history of the Greco-Roman world. It does not engage with piracy as an economic phenomenon; therefore it does not try to dig below the surface of piracy as a social or cultural phenomenon.
The author is "skeptical" (his own term) about ancient accusations of piracy. He attempts to distinguish it from war making, although he understands that the distinction between the two is blurry in most eras. An important feature of the book is its full integration of evidence from ancient inscriptions in metal and stone, which de Souza uses as a healthy check on the accusations of narrative historians...