Seamanship and piracy in Greece are bound together in the rich mythologies and recorded realities of ancient Grecian history. With coastlines that constitute more than 90 percent of its borders, few roads, and relatively little agricultural land, the earliest Greeks naturally looked to the sea as a way of life. As a result, Greece would become a pillar of expert seamanship and hub of merchant shipping routes in the ancient world, and it remains so to this day.

At the center of the Mediterranean Sea, Greece was virtually at the crossroads of seagoing commerce and shipping lanes that reached from Asia to northern Africa, and from Italy to the east. It was also directly connected to the Balkan countries to the north. As trading ebbed and flowed throughout the region over the centuries, piracy would also ebb and flow in near-perfect unison. Much of our knowledge of ancient Greece is cloaked in mythology and the fictionalized historical accounts of the Greek poet, Homer. The rise in power and influence of the Greek island of Crete is generally undisputed, and Cretan shipping and trade was extended to virtually all ports in the Mediterranean. On the mainland of Greece, the Mycenaean Greek civilization also flourished and overlapped the Cretan civilization, with trade likely occurring between the two powerhouses.