The Mediterranean: with this concept, can and should we make interesting history? If so, what kind of story? These were the questions underlying The Corrupting Sea. A Study of Mediterranean History (Oxford, 2000). The lectures presented at the Collège de France explored how we might approach the relationship between histories of the Mediterranean and those of the world surrounding the Mediterranean region. They focused on ancient history, with incursions into more recent history.
In ancient thought, land and sea were strictly distinguished. This distinction is well understood. We have explored how ancient authors intended to reduce the separation by speaking of "becoming maritime", in contrast to the normal orientation of human life towards the land. The locus classicus is found in Herodotus 7, 144: anankasas thalassious genesthai Athenaious ("forcing the Athenians to become maritime"), a precedent spectacularly developed by Rome's strategy against Carthage in the First Punic War. This topo has a long history and can be found in many accounts of unexpected military victories. The question arises as to how this well-known conception relates to the more realistic social and political history of Mediterranean seafarers. The investigation leads to a vision of the means and objectives of a more or less forced mobilization of people in a maritime environment. The latter thus acquires a distinct historical personality, and at the same time establishes special relationships with the lands where the sailors are recruited. In turn, this comparison sheds new light on the well-known episodes of "becoming maritime" in ancient history.
We began by tracing the boundary between the places where seafarers were recruited and the sea on which they were deployed. As a space, the latter was defined by this mobilization, and more broadly by its connectivity. Those who lived closest to the sea could be mobilized easily and repeatedly. Yet in some cases, it was the most unlikely of land-dwellers who "became maritime": mountain dwellers and barbarians from territories far from the coast. "Becoming maritime" then appears as a unique movement towards the sea and its high level of connectivity, according to a gradient that can be calculated as a function of connectivity, and above all as a function of the mobilization of goods and people. Inland areas also have their own connectivity regimes. We have therefore studied the history of changing polarities in areas between sea and continent, which can be dominated by both maritime and terrestrial formations, according to recurring movements that lead us to call them "backwash societies". The dynamics of these changes can be closely linked to the development of states, and we set out to find common denominators in the development of small political entities on the periphery of the Mediterranean area, between the Bronze Age and the Middle Ages.