ABSTRACT
From the time the Romans dubbed the Mediterranean, Mare Nostrum, the history of the Mediterranean as an environment, a space of networks or a site of civilisational conflict has been overshadowed by its northern shores. The concept of 'our sea' introduced by the Romans was picked up in the nineteenth century by the French, who justified their conquest of the Maghrib, by maintaining that they were following in Rome's footsteps and re-claiming the southern shores for western civilisation (Lorcin 2002). In the twentieth century, the Italians, in the guise of 'new Rome', similarly justified their imperialism and the incursion into Libya and the horn of Africa (Ben-Ghiat and Fuller 2008). In the intervening period between the decline of Roman hegemonic influence in the region and the rise of France and Italian aspirations to emulate Roman imperialism, the Mediterranean has been as much a site of contestation as it has of peaceful networks of migration and trade. Correspondingly, the historiography of the sea from the northern perspective has been one of an enclosed space, a space whose specific characteristics, whether environmental or cultural, set it apart (Braudel 1949; Horden and Purcell 2000; Tillion 1983). In this image of the Mediterranean, the southern shores are envisioned as sites whose interaction is essentially across the sea to its bordering territories, rather than far beyond it.
