ABSTRACT
It has been argued above that as the tendency to use mercenary armies gained strength so the numbers of unemployed and wandering mercenaries increased.1 In this chapter it will be suggested, first, that leisteia (which may as well be rendered as ‘piracy’ until the word’s content is discussed) became more common, and so more of a social problem, in the fourth century, and, second, that its growth was concomitant with the rise of mercenary service because the same sorts of people were engaged in both (respectively, or successively).
