Pirate Theme Party

Normally, you will host your pirate theme party at your home, regardless of its location, but wouldn’t it be nice to host a pirate theme party at an authentic pirate port of call? Pirates worked for no government and usually banded together at “friendly” locations. During the Golden Age of Piracy, those ports were usually located in the Caribbean. Today they constitute some major tourist havens, but some are politically unstable. Cuba forever changed its identity as a tourist location when Fidel Castro led a revolution and installed a communist government. Gone were the mafia run casinos and brothels. Haiti was a prime location for pirates during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but today it is so unstable that it is dangerous to simply exist. The United States had to pull out its embassy because American lives were in serious jeopardy. Pirate ports of call have existed virtually since the invention of long sailing ships. During the reign of the Roman Empire, many Cilician pirates roamed the waters. They operated right under the nose of the mightiest empire the world had ever seen. Cilician pirates had strongholds on the coasts of Liguria and Illyria because the Roman Empire did not patrol those waters. Now that would be a great location for a pirate theme party. By the time the Cilician pirates came on the scene, Rome’s navy was not as powerful as it once had been. They only patrolled the waters of the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic seas. In fact, the Romans regularly contracted out their shipping needs, giving a new meaning to the term “outsourcing.” During that time, ships were not outfitted like the classical pirate ships. Cannons had not been invented yet, and neither had guns, but they enjoyed success none the less. Who knows what riches they got their hands on!!!