The sea of all civilization, and almost all history, girdled by the fairest countries in the world; set there that human beings from all its shores might mingle with each other, and become humane-the sea of Egypt, of Palestine, of Greece, of Italy, of byzant, of Marseilles, and this Narbonnaise, 'more Roman than Rome herself,' to which we owe the greater part of our own progress; the sea, too, Algeria and Carthage, and Cyrene, and fair lands now desolate, surely not to be desolate for ever;-the sea of civilization.
"Prose Idylls"
Charles Kingsley
Here is a man here who was with your noble uncle in byzant.
"Hereward, The Last of the English"
Charles Kingsley