You may ask how this came about. It was no longer the case of the old Cilicians or the Balearic Islanders coming into activity once more. On the contrary, the last-mentioned people, far from being pirates in the sixteenth century, were actually pillaged than pillagers. A new element had now been introduced, and we enter upon a totally different sphere of the piratical history. Before we seek to inquire into the origin and development of this new force which comes across the pages of history, let us bear in mind the change which had come over the Mediterranean. During the classical times piracy was indeed bad enough, because, among other things, it interfered so seriously with the corn ships which carried the means of sustenance. But in those days the number of freight ships of any kind was infinitesimal compared with the enormous number of fighting craft that were built by the Mediterranean nations. And however much Greece and Rome laboured to develop the warlike galley, yet the evolution of the merchant ship was sadly neglected, partly, no doubt, because of the risks which a merchant ship ran and partly because the centuries of fighting evoked little encouragement for a ship of commerce. During the centuries which followed the downfall of the Roman Empire it must not be supposed that the sea was bereft of pirates. As we have already seen, the decay of Rome was commensurate with the revival of piracy. But with the gradual spread of southern civilisation the importance of and the demand for commercial ships, as differentiated from fighting craft, increased to an unheard-of extent. No one requires to be reminded of the rise to great power of Venice and Genoa and Spain. They became great overseas traders within limits, and this postulated the ships in which goods could be carried. So it came to this that crossing and recrossing the Mediterranean there were more big-bellied ships full of richer cargoes and traversing the sea with greater regularity than ever had been in the history of the world. And as there will always be robbers when given the opportunity, either by sea or by land, irrespective of race or time, so when this amount of wealth was now afloat the sea-robber had every incentive to get rich quickly by a means that appealed in the strongest terms to an adventurous temperament.