Question

Who were the great traders and seafarers on the Mediterranean Sea?

Answer 1

There have been several great Maritime Cultures that dominated the Mediterranean in the last 3,000 years: They include the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Venetians, and the British.

Explanation:

The Mediterranean, particularly in the eastern end where Europe, Africa and Asia all come together, has a long and lively maritime history. Purely military empires find navies to be expensive, whereas trading nations find them necessary.

Records are not clear on maritime cultures much before 1,500 BC, but there must have been at least one -- some of the decorative and cultural features of Prehistoric Maltese sites reflect those found on the Atlantic coast of Europe from Portugal to Ireland. Whoever these people were, we know almost nothing about them.

Lebanon, being a narrow strip of land caught between mountains and the sea, naturally lends itself to maritime activity, and the Phoenicians voyaged, traded, and colonized quite heavily around 1,000 BC, until eventually eclipsed by the Greeks and the Romans much later. Rome depended heavily on shipping, particularly to get Egyptian grain to Rome itself, and did much to suppress piracy to protect the sea-lanes.

Byzantium, often heavily vexed by Arabs after the 7th Century, was the dominant naval and trading power in the Mediterranean after the fall of Rome, but grew increasingly weaker after 1,000 AD. Venice, like the Phoenicians long before, was hemmed in by land and open to the Sea, and became a prosperous maritime power for several centuries, but proved unable to fend of the Turks, even after their victory at Lepanto in 1571.

The British, after securing Gibraltar (the gate to the Mediterranean) in the early 18th Century, and Malta (the vital strategic point half-way along its length) in 1801 were positioned to be the dominant naval -- and trading -- power in the Mediterranean until after the Second World War.