Throughout the Bronze Age and into the Middle Ages, piracy continued to maintain a fearsome foothold in the Mediterranean that would not be shaken until well after the Romans and Byzantines came into power to dominate the entire region. Farther north, along the Atlantic coastlines of Europe, a different breed of seamen, the Vikings, would come into power. Their influence during the Dark Ages would expand the arts of navigation, exploration, and commerce — and piracy, into one of its most frightening forms.