SEA OF EMPIRES
A Journey Around the Ancient
Civilisations of the Mediterranean
15 x 26'
The Mediterranean has been the setting of more human struggle and achievement than anywhere on
earth. in this series, round-the-world yachtsman St. John Stephen takes a luxury yacht on a journey around the ancient civilisations of the Mediterranean.
This series combines intriguing and unusual history with visual appeal and style of the best travel programmes.
The episodes include:
Carthage and the Phoenician trading Empire; Pirates, Corsairs and Privateers; Pisa and Genoa and the Crusades; The Roman Fleet; The Norman Kingdom of Sicily; The
British Empire in Minorca; The Sicilian defeat of Athens; Popes and Poets.
CARTHAGE (TUNIS)
- Scion of the Phoenician trading empire and the only great seafaring and trading power to threaten Rome, its remains can be found in Tunis. In 46BC Rome, after three
hundred years of war, sacks the city, razes it to the ground and sows salt onto the lands so nothing will grow again. St John gives commentary on trade, sailing and the history of Carthage and its significance for us today.
PIRATES, CORSAIRS AND PRIVATEERS (TUNIS, MINORCA) - From Rome to the early years of the 20th century the Mediterranean was a veritable haven for pirates and for the
officially sanctioned and informally condoned privateers, who, under whatever flag was convenient, would plunder, ransom and raid their way to wealth and political prestige.
TRADE & CRUSADE (PISA)
- Here, amidst the medieval splendours of Pisa and Genoa the inextricable link between trade and war is laid bare. St John recounts how the growth of the
Pisan and Genoan empires in the 12th century is almost wholly due to the help their seaman gave in transporting the first Crusade to the Holy Land. We see how the trading concessions
they were rewarded with resulted in the flood of wealth that returned to these merchant cities.
SEAFARING IS A MUST (PISA) - Though its legions were unconquered on land Rome swiftly
learnt from the Carthaginians that mastery of the sea was everything. They set about building a fleet and a merchant system with customary Roman thoroughness.
HOME FROM HOME Pt.1 (SICILY)
- A Norman conquest that is less well known. The Norman Kingdom of Sicily. Invited to help themselves by Pope Nicholas II, in the hope that they would
go away and leave him alone, in 1091 they had acquired most of Southern Italy, and one of them, Roger, the over-lordship of Sicily. The programme marvels at the architectural legacy of
this fierce breed, and through them showing the striking similarities between the Normans in England and their cousins here the almost identical feudal system by radically different racial make-up of the governed.
HOME FROM HOME Pt 2 (MINORCA) - The Minorcan capital of Port Mahon, the premier deep water port of the Mediterranean, was a crucial staging post for navies seeking to control the
western Med. In 1708 the British took control of the port, managing to keep control, with the odd interlude, until 1808, when it was ceded to Spain. A whimsical look at the cultural impact the British rule had on the island.
THE GREAT INVASION (MALLORCA, FRANCE) - Dipping in and out of many locations, a slightly wry look at the latest greatest invasion, peaceful, passport-free and relatively painless.
We look at tourism in the Med at the end of the twentieth century - relating it to the bloodshed and struggles of the past now that European Union and a single currency begin to transform the
Sea of Empires into the Playground of the People.
THE HINGE OF FATE (TUNIS) - The title the historians gave to the North African campaign
during the Second World War which reached its finale in the deserts around Tunis, where the German Afrika Corps were finally destroyed. At the Commonwealth War Cemetery at
Medjez-El-Bab, St John gives an account of the campaign where he nearly lost his own father. In the Tunis Roman amphitheatre he recounts the fall of the city with Churchill's own
recollections of the place. This is the city, Eisenhower made plans to invade Scicily and the dates for the "Overlord", the invasion of France, were decided upon.
HE WHO LAUGHS FIRST (SICILY
) - Syracuse on the east coast of Sicily "the New York of the ancient Greek World" was the city that defeated Athens, effectively ending the Grecian
Empire. It boasts a Greek Theatre, one of the largest in the world, dating back the 6th century BC, and an amphitheatre which housed gladiatorial contests featuring the lethal blend of blood
crazed lions and ethnic minorities.
POETS AND POPES (AVIGNON) - After the Pope Boniface VIII was arrested, by the French King for tax evasion it was felt that the Papacy should decamp to Avignon, where it remained
for 60 years. Within this walled city we experience the lifestyles of these venal, carnal and profoundly corrupt Pontiffs.
We touch upon the Italian poet Petrarch the love of his life and the scathing attacks on the
behaviour of these Popes, which gave rise to his perfecting the sonnet.
LITTLE ROME (ARLES) - A city that was, under the Romans, capital of Britain, as well as
France and Spain and which they themselves referred to a "Little Rome". The southern most crossing point of the Rhone River, it was the tunnel through which the wealth of Gaul and
Britain passed out into the Mediterranean, bound for the imperial capital.
THE ANCIENTS (MINORCA, MARSEILLE) - The Balearic islands allegedly got their name
because of the ancient islanders extreme skill at offensive stone slinging - but more romantically maybe the islands themselves look to have been scattered off the mainland shore.
However named, they are certain to contain some of the most interesting and well persevered examples of prehistoric life.
THE WIND OF THE PROPHET (TUNIS, SICILY) - Since the sixth century and the birth of the
Prophet Mohammed the Mediterranean has been the primary arena where the civilisations Europe and Islam have collided. Too often the Bedouin chiefs were stereotyped as pirates or
shifty, bent on kidnap slavery or indolence, in fact the Arab nations were often repositories of architecture, skilled traders and frequently put their barbaric Northern neighbours to shame.
ART FOR GOD'S SAKE (GENOA)
- A view of that stunning flowering of art referred to as the Renaissance - the relationship between politics and family feuding and the more ambiguous
one that these fabulously rich merchants had both with their own wealth and with God. Against the stunning visual backdrop of Genoa we see ways in which art could be used to buy heavenly
salvation, enhance prestige and manifest earthly powers; all this whilst the church was, in word if not in deed, preaching the Christian virtue of poverty.
MEDITERRANEAN ODYSSEY
- Sets the scene for the series, taking an overview of the importance the Mediterranean has in the history and psyche of Europe. We see how its role
as trade route and transmitter of culture and values, its place as a pivotal historical arena and the almost mythic part that it plays in the way in which we think of ourselves as Europeans.
Producer: Stampede Productions.
Availability: Worldwide, all media (ex. Europe - satellite).