ABSTRACT
The cultural unity of the territory of Hellenism and of the Roman empire corresponded to a similarity in the physiognomy of the whole country. Amid the manifold variety of the landscape and the human types, both from country to country and within the various countries, the observant traveller who visits Spain and Anatolia, Greece and Syria, southern Italy and northern Africa, will be surprised at the uniformity he finds in all the Mediterranean countries in the character of the landscape, in the flora, the climate, and the rhythm of human life. The northerner, in his longing for the blue waters, the brilliant sunshine, the clear atmosphere, and the picturesque though dignified nonchalance of the natives, is very liable to idealize the country of the South, and on the other hand to be disgusted on a closer acquaintance with the unfamiliar scene, the dried up rivers and streamlets, the burning sun, the dust, and the dirtiness and lack of discipline of the inhabitants. But the dweller in any one Mediterranean country will feel at home in any of the others; sun and shade, spring and grove, the animals and the way of living of the humans will remind him of his own homeland.
