At the edge of the corrupting sea (Myres Memorial Lectures)

Recent historical debates have disputed the nature of Mediterranean history, and the different types of unity and fragmentation that have defined its limits. This investigation takes one extreme land that was part of Rome's Mediterranean empire, the province of Mauretania Tingitana - the northern regions of modern day Morocco, to test the extent and quality of its relations with the Mediterranean. These connections turn out to be rather peculiar. They suggest new questions not only about the nature of the internal development of this land, but also about the history of Mediterranean extensions into the Atlantic. This is the twenty-third J L Myres Memorial Lecture, delivered at New College, Oxford in 2005. Brent Shaw is the Andrew Fleming West Professor of Classics at Princeton.