AS OLD AS HISTORY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 17 April 1939, Page 5

AS OLD AS HISTORY

ROMANCE CHANGED TO MENACE For the average New Zealander, accustomed to thinking of the Imperial Navy in terms of tremendous sea distances, ceaselessly guarding an Empire far-flung to the four corners of the earth, it may be difficult to grasp the significance of the Mediterranean Sea. 1 It. is easy to imagine people wondering 1 why so many ships bother to coop themselves up in so small a space when so much of the rest of the Empire has , no ships at all (states the “Auckland i Star’"). , Actually, the mediterranean is one of j the most important stretches of sea in : the world. It has been since the dawn j of history, and. in those anxious hours, ! is more so than ever. Its position | makes it so. It is right in the centre I of a great land mass, which has been | divided throughout the centuries into many nations. It is. as it were, a vast pond, down to the edge of which slope many private gardens. Nine nations have gardens like that. They are Spain. France. Italy, Yugo--1 slavia, Greece. Turkey, Asia Minor } (taken as a whole). Egypt and Great j Britain. For obvious reasons, no men- ! lion has been made of Albania in this list. The north African littoral is divided between Italy. France, Spain and [ Egypt. Morocco belongs partly to : Spain and partly to France. Algiers and Tunis are French, while Tripoli is , under the swa3 r of Mussolini. Britain, of course, has islands in that pond. ■ There is Gibraltar, an island to all intents and purposes, though not properly i | so; there is Malta and Cyprus. THE SUEZ CANAL I Added to this, there is the Suez Canal. the importance of which to Bri- | tain need not be explained. It is natural, then, when world unj rest seems to be more acute than ever, i that this meeting place of so many na- ; tions should become a focal point of 1 importance. So much for its importance in the j immediate present. Judged from the 1 j long view of history, this present im- ! portance is only a typical incident in the centuries during which the sea has always been important. It was known to Greek and Roman mythology. Have not the names of Scylla and Charybdis come down to a 20th century to be used . figuratively? These are the waters where the ships ! of Caesar fought with the might of Hannibal. The quinquiremes of Ninevah plied for trade before the birth of ; Christ. Here the waters ran red as the ! might of Christian Europe strove to eradicate once and for all the menace of the pirates lurking near Morocco. It was from Venice that Marco Polo ! set out on his journey which is ?o ancient and so famous that the truth ! of it has passed gently into legend. , Empires round this sea have risen only to fall, and to be replaced by others. History has been made. National! fortunes have changed. Fame has been i won here and lost again. The centuries have passed: and only the 800.000 miles of this eternal sea has remained. The very name means sea in the middle of the earth —for this was the middle of the world when the Romans so named it. Its long. long story has given it undying romance. It is an :1luminating commentary on this so-cali-ed civilisation to change that romance into menace. PEARLS FOR SOLOMON’S TEMPLE j Some say that the beaked ships of| the Phoenicians crept out of this sea ! and down into the Pacific to gather i | pearls for Solomon's temple. Certain it ! is that excavators in Tyre found a litj tie ornament wrought in gold which could have come only from Ireland. 1 I and they dated it as having been r brought there more than 1000 .years be- c fore Christ was born. This is the sea of Homer and of Virgil. Out of their ; far harbours came the vessels of the , Pharaohs. Across this sea passed Antony to Cleopatra, to make a subject I for one of the world's immortal tragedies. But much of this took pLace when the world was so young that its accurate history has been lost. There is much known that is accur--1 ate. AIL those who have taken Latin at | school will remember—perhaps with a ' good deal of bitterness—that Hannibal and Hanno came to Europe. The pioneer of Carthage was a woman —a princess named Elissa, who was j fleeing from the tyranny of her brother. | Pygmalion. Elissa subsequently rc- | ceived the name Dido, that is “the fugii tive.” The third Punic War (which | lasted only three years) was the beginning of the end of Carthage. It was i destroyed by the Romans in 146 8.C.. rebuilt by the Romans in 122 8.C.. and finally destroyed by the Arabs in A.D. 698. MALTA—AND ST. PAUL Carthage, indeed, for all its drama and romance, ranks as but a detail in the storied history of the great Middle Sea. A more potent circumstance is that Christianity was born in a land fringing its waters, and upon some of its islands occurred memorable scenes in the New Testament chronicles. Most 1 of all. Malta prides itself on association ! with St. Paul. Is not St. Paul’s Bav. (hat deep inlet near Valetta, the precise spot where the apostle landed on the isle? Rather more than 17 miles long and | | about seven miles wide. Malta has ai-1 j ways been strategically distinguished. | I partly because it is almost exactly in I the centre of the Mediterranean, and I 'partly because it has magnificent har- L hours, in which, age after age. those i ! who have sailed upon the uncertain j i waters have found shelter. Napoleon bestrode the Mediterranean ; as no man had ever done since the days I of Carthage. Sailing from Toulon in i 1798. he seized Malta, and. twice luclc- ; ily escaping the English Fleet under j Nelson, captured Alexandria. , In 1869 the Mediterranean took on a j new character. For many centuries men had talked of the possibilities of cutting n canal through the 100 miles of low-

lying country to link the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, but it was left to j the genius and energy of a Frenchman. | Ferdinand de Lesseps, to attack the | problem decisively. THE FAME OF ANZACS j In April, 1859. the work of constructing the Suez Canal was formally begun, and in November, 1869, the new waterway was formally opened. Through this achievement the Mediterranean became more important than ever, a highway of world movement and trade. The pageant changes. It comes down to a morning in this month, 24 years ago. The morning is 25th April. Modern Argonauts sailed across the Mediterranean to land on the peninsula of Gallipoli. So in the great pageant of the centuries was founded the everlasting fame of the name Anzac. This, perhaps, more than any other reason, is why New Zealand should have a prideful interest in this ancient sea. To-day another dictator strives to j stride the sea, a modern Colossus. Be- j nito Mussolini demands that this sea j shall be the lake of Italy. This is fori the future —but other dictators have' had their day and ceased to be. !