The collapse of Constantinople's power in western Anatolia and the Aegean Sea in the late thirteenth century, as well as the disbandment of the imperial navy in 1284, had created a power vacuum in the region, which had been swiftly exploited by the Turkish beyliks and the ghazi raiders.

The Turks, utilizing local Greek seamen, began to engage in piracy across the Aegean, targeting especially the numerous Latin island possessions.

The feuds between the two major Latin maritime states, Venice and Genoa, aid the Turkish corsair activities.

The Turks of Menteshe (and later the Aydinids) had captured the port town of Ephesus in 1304, and the islands of the eastern Aegean seemed about to fall to Turkish raiders.

The Knights Hospitaller occupied Rhodes to forestall such a calamitous event, in about 1308, the same year the Genoese occupied Chios, where Benedetto I Zaccaria had established a minor principality.

These two powers will bear the brunt of countering Turkish pirate raids until 1329.