Why do pirates wear a patch over one eye?
Many explanations have been suggested for the stereotypical pirate’s inevitable eye patch. Some are more convincing than others, and the most convincing, unfortunately, is the least connected with actual pirates.A Brief History of PiratesWhile the Roman historian Polybius used the word “pierato” in 140 BCE, the modern conception of a pirate did not arise until the 1600s, when European nations began to institute international maritime law against piracy. These pirates–some of them surreptitiously employed by governments to disrupt rival economies–made raids on international and colonial shipping lines, but they probably did not frequently punctuate their sentences with “arrh”, and they did not necessarily wear eye patches.Eye DamageThe basic explanation for the traditional pirate eye patch concerns what is still the primary reason for eye patch-wearing today: to cover and protect a damaged eye. Pirates, prone (at least mythologically) to shipboard combat with sharp cutlasses, might ea
