The Mediterranean

地中海

The devil and the deep blue sea

魔鬼和那灣蔚藍深邃的海

History’s most important sea

最富有歷史意義的海

May 5th 2011 | from the print edition of The Economist

譯者：premiermao

The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean. By David Abulafia. Allen Lane; 783 pages. To be published in America in September by Oxford University Press

《偉大的海：地中海的人文史》 大衛(wèi)·阿布拉菲亞著。Allen Lane出版社出版，783頁。將于今年九月在美國由牛津大學(xué)出版社出版

DAVID ABULAFIA’S marvellous history of the Mediterranean is an excellent corrective to oversimplified views of geopolitics. Some people home in on distinctive landmasses, an island such as Crete or a clear shape like Iberia or Anatolia, and assume these have long formed a single cultural or political space, embracing coast and interior, and different from places “across the water”. At the other extreme, romantic types regard a lake or sea as a friendly space where ideas, expertise and merchandise are traded to perpetual mutual advantage. The second view is the more likely. True, the various ports and shores of the Mediterranean influenced one another (if war is regarded as a form of influence), but the impact of hinterlands and of distant powers, like Russia and America, was also huge.

大衛(wèi)·阿布拉菲亞所著的這本對地中海歷史的杰出著述是對那些過分簡單化的地緣政治觀的絕好糾正。有些人將注意力集中于特定的地塊，像是克里特島這樣的某個島嶼，抑或是諸如伊比利亞半島或小亞細亞半島等具有清晰輪廓的地理區(qū)域，并且主觀臆斷這些地方很久前就形成了單一的、包括海岸和內(nèi)陸的、不同于“地中海對岸”那些地區(qū)的文化或政治空間。這是一個極端。而另一個極端則是那些飽受浪漫主義熏陶的人則把湖泊或海洋視為思想、技能和貨物獲得交流從而使交易雙方都能恒久受益的寶域。后一種觀點更接近現(xiàn)實。的確，地中海沿岸的諸多港口和海岸相互影響（如果戰(zhàn)爭也被視作一種影響的話），但是內(nèi)陸地區(qū)和那些距離地中海路途遙遠的大國，如俄國和美國，其影響力亦不可小覷。

Marshalling a vast array of intricate detail, Mr Abulafia takes the reader from the age of the Phoenicians and Trojans to the advent of modern tourism. He distinguishes epochs when the sea was kept safe by a single power—the Roman empire, the Royal Navy or the Sixth Fleet—from periods of intense strategic conflict and from times of free-for-all between small powers, slave-traders and pirates.

通過梳理大量錯綜復(fù)雜的細枝末節(jié)，阿布拉菲亞先生在本書中帶領(lǐng)讀者從腓尼基人和特洛伊人的時代一直走到現(xiàn)代旅游業(yè)的出現(xiàn)。他把這段歷史中各個單一強權(quán)獨自統(tǒng)治地中海并維護其安寧的時代——無論是羅馬帝國、英國皇家海軍還是美國第六艦隊——跟那些存在著激烈的戰(zhàn)略沖突的時代以及各小國，甚至是奴隸販子和海盜對這片海域展開開放式爭奪的時代區(qū)分開來。

In most phases of history, Mr Abulafia shows, the Mediterranean was a net exporter of economic and cultural might. In the Middle Ages, for example, city-states in present-day Italy or Spain traded from a position of strength with north European suppliers of textiles and north African sellers of gold. They also established bases in the eastern Mediterranean, exploiting Byzantium’s decline, gaining access to merchandise from farther east. In the modern era the Suez Canal reduced the role of the sea to that of thoroughfare, between the Atlantic and Asia.

阿布拉菲亞先生在書中闡明，地中海地區(qū)在大多數(shù)的歷史階段都是經(jīng)濟力和文化力的凈輸出地。比如，在中世紀，坐落于今天的意大利和西班牙境內(nèi)的那些城市國家在跟歐洲北部地區(qū)（注意：作者這里指的不是今天的北歐國家，這是的“北”是相對于意大利和西班牙而言的，指的是當時的尼德蘭、佛蘭德斯和英格蘭等地區(qū)——譯者注）的紡織品供貨商和北非地區(qū)的黃金販子交易的時候是處于強勢地位的。他們還趁著拜占庭帝國的衰落在地中海東部地區(qū)建立了一些基地，從而獲得了從東方世界輸入的商品。歷史進入現(xiàn)代后，蘇伊士運河的開鑿降低了地中海的地位，使其更多扮演了連接亞洲和大西洋的海上走廊的角色。

Mr Abulafia enjoys using arcane detail to bolster his arguments. Explaining the rise of Barcelona as a naval power to rival Italian city-states like Pisa and Genoa, he notes the balanced diet of Catalan sailors: more biscuit and cheese than the Venetians, less wine than the Neapolitans, but plenty of garlic, onions and spices to make hard biscuits more palatable.

阿布拉菲亞先生喜歡用鮮為人知的歷史細節(jié)來支持他的論點。在解釋巴塞羅那何以崛起成為一個能與比薩和熱那亞等意大利城市國家抗衡的海上強權(quán)時，他提到了加泰羅尼亞水兵們平衡的膳食結(jié)構(gòu)：他們比威尼斯人吃更多的餅干和奶酪，但喝酒卻比那不勒斯人少，同時他們吃大量的大蒜、洋蔥和調(diào)味品使得生硬的餅干吃起來更加可口。

Choosing his superlatives carefully, he concludes that the Mediterranean has been “the most vigorous place of interaction between different societies on the face of this planet”. Indeed, its role in the history of civilisation has “far surpassed [that of] any other expanse of sea”. But as the book makes clear, these interactions were not always mutually beneficial.

這位在使用最高級的時候慎之又慎的作者認為地中海一直是“這個星球上不同社會之間相互影響最為積極活躍的地區(qū)”。的確，地中海在人類文明史上的地位已經(jīng)“遠遠超越了任何其它海域（的地位）”。但是就像本書闡明的那樣，這些相互影響并不總是對雙方都有益的。

The cargoes transported across the Mediterranean included terrified slaves and prisoners (like the apostle Paul, whose ship was smashed to pieces) as well as exotic spices. Voyages, whether military or commercial, were undertaken in a spirit of ruthless calculation, not open-hearted adventure. Despite the warm feelings it now evokes in north European hearts, as a locus of healthy food and blissful ecology, the Mediterranean is a perilous place for sailors. In winter, storms can brew up fast and rage for days. That is one reason why Mediterranean people who make their living from the sea do not share the romantic emotions of those who splash about for fun. Indeed before the age of tourism not many littoral folk learned to swim; the risk of drowning was too high.

通過地中海運輸?shù)呢浳锛扔衼碜援愑虻南懔?，也有?dān)驚受怕的奴隸和囚犯（例如耶穌的門徒保羅，他乘坐的船觸角沉沒）。彼時在地中海上的旅行，無論是軍事性質(zhì)的還是商業(yè)性質(zhì)的，都是一種無情的深思熟慮而非敞開胸懷的冒險精神下進行的。盡管今天居住在歐洲偏北部地區(qū)的人們都對地中海懷有一種好感，把它看作是健康食品和優(yōu)良生態(tài)的處所，地中海對于海員來書仍然是一個危險四伏的地方。冬季的風(fēng)暴不僅說來就來而且能持續(xù)數(shù)天。這是那些靠海吃飯的地中海漁民們?nèi)狈泶送嫠覒虻挠稳藢@片海域所懷有的浪漫感情的原因之一。的確在大規(guī)模旅游業(yè)時代到來之前，海邊居民中學(xué)會游泳的人并不多，因為在海中溺水身亡的危險性太高了。

Cross-fertilisation between cultures and religions did, of course, take place, often despite the efforts of secular and religious leaders to stop it, or to ensure that influence only flowed one way. In Tunis you can see the tomb of a Majorcan friar who studied Islam in Bologna and then moved to north Africa where he became a learned and distinguished Muslim.

盡管經(jīng)常受到來自世俗和宗教領(lǐng)袖的阻礙，以及他們試圖確保影響力單方向起作用的努力，地中海地區(qū)不同文化和宗教間仍然實現(xiàn)了相互交融。在突尼斯你能見到一位馬略卡修士的墳?zāi)?。他曾在博洛尼亞學(xué)習(xí)伊斯蘭教，后又來到北非并成為一名博學(xué)而顯赫的穆斯林。

Mr Abulafia notes with approval that Sephardic Jews, such as his own forebears, forced to leave Spain for Ottoman Smyrna, have been especially open to integration with surrounding cultures. Whereas modern Judaism celebrates the Jewish revolt against the Hellenised dynasty that ruled the Levant, Mr Abulafia prefers to focus on Alexandria, where there was a more productive symbiosis between Hellene and Hebrew. Its fruits include a great Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures and Philo’s brilliant exposition of Jewish metaphysics—written in Greek.

阿布拉菲亞先生在書中對那些被迫離開西班牙前往奧斯曼帝國控制下的士麥那的瑟法底猶太人（包括作者本人的祖先）做出了肯定，認為他們尤其樂于融入周圍的文化。現(xiàn)在的猶太教紀念猶太人對那些曾經(jīng)統(tǒng)治地中海東部的希臘化王朝的反叛，阿布拉菲亞先生卻選擇將目光轉(zhuǎn)向埃及亞歷山大港，那里的希臘人和希伯來人曾經(jīng)和睦共處并創(chuàng)造出很多文化成果，包括希伯來語經(jīng)文的一個偉大的古希臘語譯本和斐洛以古希臘語寫成的對猶太人形而上學(xué)思想的杰出闡釋。

Mr Abulafia is too conscientious a historian to speculate much about the future, or even to prejudge how the modern age will fit into the sweep of Mediterranean history. But using his analytical tools, it is surely possible to sketch out a rather dark outlook for the sea, thanks not just to the ebbing of European power but to avoidable crises of governance and demography. As things stood until recently, an unhealthy sort of system linked northern and southern Europe, with subsidies and tourist euros from the north helping to mask and preserve dysfunctional politics and sclerotic societies south of the Alps.

阿布拉菲亞先生作為一位認真負責(zé)的歷史學(xué)家并沒有在本書中對未來作出過多猜測，也沒有對目前這個時代將在整個地中海歷史中所處的位置作出預(yù)判。但是利用他的分析工具，我們肯定可以為地中海勾勒出一個黯淡的未來，這不僅是因為因為歐洲的衰落也是由于本可避免的治理危機和人口危機。直到最近，把歐洲北部地區(qū)和南部地區(qū)聯(lián)系起來的是一種不健康的體制。在這種體制下，歐盟補貼和來自歐洲北部的游客給當?shù)貛淼氖杖霂椭谏w并維持著阿爾卑斯山以南地區(qū)一潭死水的政治和僵化的社會。

An even less healthy dynamic connected Europe as a whole with north Africa: the European Union absorbed some of the Maghreb’s surplus labour, while helping to prop up the region’s authoritarian regimes. Both those political ecosystems are now collapsing, with the euro-zone crisis, the advent of Arab people power and the war in Libya. The crises present a challenge to both regions; the Maghreb needs to loosen political control and strengthen its institutions and Europe must support such moves, both politically and economically. Failing to seize the opportunity may result in the flow of desperate people northward becoming uncontrollable. That may not be so unusual when set against three millennia of conflict in the Med. The worst outcome would be for Europe and north Africa, both losing relative weight in the world, to reinforce one another’s decline. That would be a lamentable fate for the “Great Sea”, invoked in a Jewish prayer which gives this book its title.

將整個歐洲與北非聯(lián)系起來的則是更加不健康的體制。歐盟吸收了北非地區(qū)的一部分過剩勞動力，與此同時也成了支持該地區(qū)專制政府的幫兇。這兩種政治生態(tài)系統(tǒng)眼下都隨著歐元區(qū)債務(wù)危機，阿拉伯人民力量的覺醒和利比亞的戰(zhàn)事而轟然倒塌。這些危機無論對北非還是歐洲都是一種挑戰(zhàn)。北非需要放松其政治控制并加強制度建設(shè)，而歐洲則必須從經(jīng)濟和政治上予以支持。如果不能抓住這個機會的話，結(jié)果可能是絕望的民眾大量向北涌入歐洲而無法控制。放在地中海三千年的沖突歷史中來看，這或許并沒什么大不了。最壞的結(jié)果是在世界舞臺上相對實力日益衰落的歐洲和北非互相之間加劇對方的衰落。這樣的命運，對于地中海這一“偉大之海”——這個稱謂來源于一則猶太禱文，同時也是本書書名的來源——來說，將是令人扼腕的。