152 david abulafiaMediterranean are not part of larger states, though half of one is under Turkish
protection. But before the mid-twentieth century both Malta and Cyprus were
tossed between conquerors, whether from neighboring shores or from outside the
Mediterranean entirely, as when they were under British rule.
The wish to control the islands or opposite shores has very often been generated
by the desire to control valuable resources or to profit from prized trade routes.
Cyprus and the shores of Cilicia attracted the Ptolemies of ancient Egypt and the
Mamluks of medieval Egypt because at home they lacked supplies of wood; if they
were to build a navy it would have to be with wood obtained across the sea. Ancient
Athens needed grain from the Aegean, or even Sicily and the Black Sea, since the city
could not be supported from the limited resources of Attika. Medieval Genoa had no
hinterland of note and saw Sardinia as its hinterland, a place it could control in order
to secure grain grown at low cost by impoverished and exploited peasants. Crete,
which has rarely been independent of outside control since the Minoan period, was
long the breadbasket of Venice. But other aims could come into play: the British
requirement to service the fleet; Napoleon’s search for la gloire in the shadow of the
Pyramids (decisively checked by Admiral Nelson at the Battle of the Nile); or
Mussolini’s dream of restoring the Roman mare nostrum. Yet no one, least of all
Mussolini, and not even the Arabs in their great age of conquest, ever managed to
repeat what the ancient Romans had achieved: rule over the shores of the whole
Mediterranean, the suppression of piracy, peace at sea—and all this lasting maybe
300 years. The secret of the success of the Roman thalassocracy in the Mediterranean
was that by the time Augustus assumed imperial power the Romans had no rivals.
Rome possessed unfettered control, and was not engaged in some sort of power
game. And therefore it worked extraordinarily well.Endnote
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