short ancestors

The Black Sea I don't know about (it gets the effluent of those huge Russian and Central European rivers which probably makes it decently rich ecologically), but I've read from scrupulous enough research the Med had only very few decent fishing spots in the 1500s and far as I know that had always been the case. That inland sea is, after all, a former lowland plain flooded when the Atlantic broke through Gibraltar; by all accounts most of it is practically ecologicallly barren compared to just about any other sea. Among the things most of it lacks is the... whatwasitcalled... "continental threshold" between the coast and the "watery desert" of the actual deep sea, where much sealife (that is readily accessible and useful for humans anyway) is concentrated.

Put this way: the Atlantic fisheries for millenia netted enough prey for it to be exported far and wide, and support thriving coastal communities of hardy seamen thus never having problems finding competent crews for ships; the Med, far as I know, pretty much only ever imported seafood because it had so little of its own available, and was always short of skilled sailors and seafarers for navies both merchant and military.

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Originally Posted by conon394

Oh maybe barley or legumes? Or how bout just making something and buying their wheat? You know trade…

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The Med did import a lot of grain, from the fertile fields of "northern" Europe and the verdant plains of Ukraine. By the ton too; the landed nobility of late Medieval and Early Modern Poland and Hungary made incredible fortunes exporting the produce of their feudal plantation-estates, and the trading cities at the river mouths that acted as intermediaries got filthy rich on their middleman position as well. As an aside rye, barley and other such "dark" grains were regarded as poor man's food around the Med and only imported and relied on because it was the only way to avoid bread shortages and food riots.

AFAIK the Romans conquered Gaul partly for its agricultural capacity too, and in any case were heavily reliant on grain exports from Sicily, North-Western African coast and Egypt - some of the few truly fertile grounds around the Med, and long the breadbaskets of the whole region - to feed their bigger cities.

Continental shelf is what you mean, Watchman. Huh, didn't know the Mediterranean didn't have that. Fits, though.

By the by, this "poor" picture you paint of the Mediterranean... how does that stroke with the reputation of Tunisia as a bread basket of the Roman empire? Even now a large part of that country is fertile, I've heard. Egypt is logical: that's the Nile. Tunisia, though...

Like Hell do I know the exact details of the geography involved, but I've a hunch it has something to do with it being part of the same "basin divider bottleneck" as Sicily and southern Italy, which have similarly long been noted for their fertility. My uneducated guess would be richer soil in the region due to volcanic activity - there's relatively many dead and hibernating volcanoes in that region, aren't there ? The vagaries of freshwater supplies (for irrigation) from highland regions as rivers, the bedwater base etc. might also be involved.

On another note, what's the rainfall pattern of that region ? It's sort of an open passage between the north-south ridge of the Apennines in Italy and the highlands and warm desert air mass of the Northern African interior; it wouldn't be strange if air currents moving eastwards over the Mediterranean basin (in part coming in from as far away as the Bay of Biscay through the passage between the Pyrenees and the Massif Central, responsible for the long notoriously, by Mediterranean standards at least, rough sailing in the Gulf of Lions) would partially end up "squeezing" through the Campania-Sicily-Tunisia opening, with due increase in rainfall in the region and duly better conditions for vegetation.