The world’s largest inland sea, with an area covering more than 969,000 square miles.
The Mediterranean Sea stretches more than 2,400 miles from its western point at the Strait of Gibraltar to its easternmost point along the Levantine coast. Its broadest expanse from North Africa in the south to Europe in the north is nearly 1,000 miles. Although it is typically shallow compared to other oceans, with an average depth of only 4,900 feet, it reaches a maximum depth of nearly 17,000 feet. An undersea ridge that runs between North Africa and the island of Sicily rises close to the surface and divides the Mediterranean into two main basins. While the marine life in the Mediterranean is not as abundant as in other bodies of water, it is home to about 400 species of fish. Plant life, as well as marine organisms such as coral and sponges, are found in large numbers in several areas.
The Mediterranean was created during the Oligocene Epoch, when part of the huge ancient ocean Tethys was nearly enclosed by plate tec-tonic movement that brought the African and Eurasian plates into contact. The collision of these two plates also created many islands of all sizes throughout the Mediterranean, such as Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, the Balearic Islands, Crete, the Cyclades, the Dodecanese, the Aegean Islands, Rhodes, and Cyprus. These coastal areas are characterized by a rocky, mountainous landscape, and earthquakes and volcanic activities are common occurrences. While the terrain can be inhospitable in some areas, there are many beaches, coastal indentations, and anchorages scattered around the Mediterranean that have provided protection to ships for centuries. Besides these shelters, the Mediterranean Sea’s weak tides and currents made it safer for sailing ships to enter and leave harbors as well as easier to beach vessels.
The Mediterranean Sea serves as a meeting point connecting three continents (Africa, Europe, and Asia) and three bodies of water (the Black Sea, the Red Sea through the Suez Canal, and the Atlantic Ocean). Important branches of the Mediterranean include the Aegean and Ionian Seas, off the coast of Greece, and the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic Seas, off the coast of Italy. The only major rivers that empty into the Mediterranean are the Nile, the Po, and the Rh^one. This low volume of water flowing into the Mediterranean fails to offset what is lost to evaporation, so the Mediterranean Sea has higher salinity than most oceans and requires a massive inflow into the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar to offset the evaporation loss. This immense influx of water creates a strong surface current that affects the entire Mediterranean Sea. From antiquity until the Middle Ages, sailing ships had a difficult time exiting the Mediterranean into the Atlantic against this current as it entered the strait. As this current travels from the Strait of Gibraltar through the Mediterranean, it creates a counterclockwise current that varies in intensity from place to place.
The Mediterranean Sea is also a major influence on the region’s meteorological conditions. The weather pattern in the Mediterranean is stable in the summer months because of the interaction between a high-pressure system stationed over the Azores and a low-pressure system in the Middle East. This produces clear skies, little rain, high heat, and strong winds that blow from the north. In the winter months, these two systems weaken and the weather pattern in the Mediterranean changes and becomes less predictable. Frequent storms move rapidly eastward across the Mediterranean Sea, bringing rain and high winds. This resulted in two basic seasons for sailing in the Mediterranean in antiquity: the summer, running from May to September, and the winter, running from about October to April.
The relatively calm sailing period during the summer months, coupled with the many anchorages and weak tidal flow, resulted in the Mediterranean being ideally suited for communication and commercial exchange. As a result, many diverse civilizations sprang up and flourished on the its shores. The Mediterranean Sea linked these different societies together and promoted cultural unity. Despite some obvious differences, the cultures that inhabited and still inhabit the areas surrounding the Mediterranean share certain common cultural traits and a similar structure in their daily routines.
The Phoenicians, Minoans, and Etruscans were among the first to establish well-defined trading routes throughout the Mediterranean in the second millennium B.C.E. In Greece, the Athenians depended on Mediterranean trade for the importation of grain and the exportation of wine and olive oil. After developing a powerful navy of triremes, Athens was able to create an empire based on its control of coastal cities in the Aegean during the fifth century B.C.E. The importance of the Mediterranean to the Greeks was not lost on Socrates, who remarked in the Phaedo that “[w]e live around the Mediterranean Sea like ants or frogs around a pond.”
After the Romans defeated the Carthaginians in the third century B.C.E., they slowly but steadily created an empire that encompassed all the Mediterranean Sea. The Romans, in fact, referred to the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum or “Our Sea.” Financial and tax records from this period illustrate that an extensive trading network was in place, which made it easy and economical to move items from one location to another, thereby allowing goods to circulate around the Mediterranean. The geographic location of cities was conducive to communication and commercial exchange. Most cities were positioned close to the Mediterranean, which allowed for easy contact with other cities and regions by way of sea travel, as water transportation was the least expensive of all methods for the transportation of goods.
As the eastern half of the Roman empire evolved into the Byzantine empire, it found itself in a struggle with the Arab empire for control over the Mediterranean during the seventh to tenth centuries C.E. The importance of this struggle between the Byzantines and Arabs over control of the Mediterranean Sea has led to several important historical models, most notably the “Pirenne Thesis.” Henri Pirenne, in his 1937 work Mohammad and Charlemagne, advanced the theory that antiquity ended and the Middle Ages began only after the Arab invasions of the seventh and eighth centuries had gained control of the southern perimeter of the Mediterranean Sea. Pirenne believed that this destroyed the Roman empire, since its unity depended on controlling the entire Mediterranean. During the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, the Byzantines competed for control of Mediterranean commerce with Italian cities such as Genoa and Venice. Throughout these periods and conflicts, the Mediterranean remained a crucial link in the trade between Europe and Asia, particularly for luxury goods.
The age of exploration and the search for new lands and new routes to the Far East had a detrimental impact on commercial activity on the Mediterranean Sea, particularly in the eastern half. The creation of a new trading route around the Cape of Good Hope in the late fifteenth century, which allowed European traders to bypass Arab traders, meant that long-distance trade diminished sharply in the Mediterranean for the next several centuries. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 ensured that the Mediterranean Sea once again became an important link in long-distance trade. The discovery of oil in the Middle East further increased the Mediterranean Sea’s importance to global trade, as countries became dependent on Middle Eastern oil exports. This new found importance resulted in control of the region becoming strategically important during the two world wars. During the Cold War, the Mediterranean Sea became a battlefield between the Soviet Union and the United States, as each superpower attempted to control trade and activity in the Mediterranean. It is still a region with great political importance, since it serves as a maritime passage for the countries of the former Soviet Union and gives Europe and the United States access to the Persian Gulf region.
R. Scott Moore
See also: Egypt, Ancient; Exploration and Trade; Greek City-States; Phoenicia; Roman Empire; Suez Canal.
Abulafia, David. The Mediterranean in History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Arenson, Sarah. The Encircled Sea: The Mediterranean Maritime Civilization. Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1991.
Braudel, Fernand. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
Horden, Peregrin, and Nicholas Purcell. The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.