ABSTRACT
The pioneers who opened up the sea routes were, in many instances, pirates seeking loot along the coasts, fugitives fleeing from an invader, emigrants driven out of their own land by the pressure of hard times, or explorers animated by curiosity and love of adventure. These are the people who, during the course of many centuries, have gradually converted the sea from the ultimate barrier to human progress into the great highway which has made the whole world one. The opening of a direct sea route to India cut at the very roots of the prosperity of the Mediterranean States. The chapter discusses how the sea-traders of Egypt, Phoenicia, and Greece linked together Europe and Asia, and gradually spread commerce, and with commerce civilization, over the whole of the Mediterranean Sea. The Mediterranean itself was still the centre of trade and civilization; but the Venetian merchant-galleasses and the Genoese carracks were stretching far afield.
