The sea rovers
Pirates are the sea rovers. The word "pirate" comes from the Latin "pirata" that came from Greek and was connected with the notion "to try". In such way the meaning of the word was "the one who tries his fortune". Etymology says about the thin limit between the professions of sailors and pirates.
This word became widely spread and used in about 4-3 centuries BC and before it there were other words that were used to call robberies, murders, etc.
Pirate is the sea rover of any nationality that was robbing the ships on his own will. They were only men as the woman abroad was considered to be the bad luck sign. But there are also a lot of terms to name the pirates of certain nation, for example, Tjekers that were also called as Thekel, Djakaray, Zakkar, Zalkkar or Zakkaray. These are the eastern pirates in 15-11th centuries BC.
Dolopians were the ancient Greek pirates that inhabited the Greek island in the second part of 6th century BC. The main region of their activity was the Aegean Sea. In about 478 BC robbed and sold Greek traders escaped and asked the help of Simon that was the chief commander of the Athens fleet. In 476 the soldiers of Simon landed the Skyros and conquered the island selling its inhabitants into bondage.
Privateer is the English word for corsair. In medieval times both terms were used. This word is not so ancient as its first document use was fixed in 1664. Sometimes with the help of this term the users wanted to accentuate the national character of pirates. But sometimes they had another nationality being for example the Dutch ones that were protecting Spain. But their main aim was always the English trade ships.
