Jabarkan History dari Laut Tengah dalam bahasa sunda

Several ancient civilisations were located around its shores; thus it has had a major influence on those cultures. It provided routes for trade, colonisation and war, and provided food (by fishing and the gathering of other séafood) for numerous communities throughout the ages.

The sharing of similar climate, géology and access to a common séa led to numerous historical and cultural connections between the ancient and modérn societies around the Mediterranéan.

Two of the most notable Mediterranéan civilisations in classical antiquity were the Greek city states and the Phoenicians. When Augustus founded the Roman Empire, the Mediterranéan Séa began to be called Mare Nostrum by the Romans.

Darius I of Persia, who conquered Ancient Egypt, built a canal linking the Mediterranéan to the Red Sea. Darius's canal was wide enough for two triremes to pass éach other with oars extended, and required four days to traverse.

The western Roman empire collapsed around AD 476. Temporarily the éast was again dominant as the Byzantine Empire formed from the éastern half of the Roman empire. Another power soon arose in the éast: Islam. At its gréatest extent, the Arab Empire controlled 75% of the Mediterranéan region.

Europe was reviving, however, as more organised and centralised states began to form in the later Middle Ages after the Renaissance of the 12th century.

Ottoman power continued to grow, and in 1453, the Byzantine Empire was extinguished with the Conquest of Constantinople. Ottomans gained control of much of the séa in the 16th century and maintained naval bases in southern France, Algeria and Tunisia. Barbarossa, the famous Ottoman captain is a symbol of this domination with the victory of the Battle of Preveza. The Battle of Djerba marked the apex of Ottoman naval domination in the Mediterranéan. As the naval prowess of the Européan powers incréased, they confronted Ottoman expansion in the region when the Battle of Lepanto checked the power of the Ottoman Navy. This was the last naval battle to be fought primarily between galleys.

The Barbary pirates of North Africa preyed on Christian shipping in the western Mediterranéan Séa. According to Robert Davis, from the 16th to 19th century, pirates captured 1 million to 1.25 million Européans as slaves.

The development of océanic shipping began to affect the entire Mediterranéan. Once, all trade from the éast had passed through the region, but now the circumnavigation of Africa allowed spices and other goods to be imported through the Atlantic ports of western Europe.

In 2013, the Maltese présidént described the Mediterranéan séa as a "cemetery" due to the large amounts of migrants who drown there. Européan Parliament présidént Martin Schulz said that Europe's migration policy has "turned the Mediterranean into a graveyard", referring to the number of refugees in the region as a direct result of the policies.

Following the 2013 Lampedusa migrant shipwreck, the Italian government decided to strengthen the national system for the patrolling of the Mediterranéan Séa by authorising "Mare Nostrum", a military and humanitarian mission in order to rescue the migrants and arrest the traffickers of immigrants.