^a Mare Nostrum (Latin for ‘Our Sea’) was a Roman name for the Mediterranean Sea. In the years following the unification of Italy in 1861, the term was revived by Italian nationalists who believed that Italy was the successor state to the Roman Empire.The term was again used by Benito Mussolini for use in fascist propaganda, in a similar manner to Adolf Hitler’s lebensraum. Mussolini wanted to re-establish the greatness of the Roman Empire and believed that Italy was the most powerful of the Mediterranean countries after World War I.

^b The states that are called Neo-Hittite, or more recently Syro-Hittite were political entities of the Iron Age in northern Syria and southern Anatolia that arose following the collapse of the Hittite Empire around 1180 BCE and which lasted until roughly 700 BCE.

^c The Cretan Minoans lived in contact with all the major civilizations of the time without being significantly threatened by external forces. Their commercial contact with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia undeniably influenced their own culture, and the Minoan civilization in turn appeared as the forerunner of the Greek civilization They were not subject to the Bronze Age collapse of 1100 BCE or thereabouts.

Argives are the inhabitants of Argos, in the Peloponnese, which had long been one of the major towns in pre-classical Greece, though it declined in the dark ages. Argos experienced its greatest period of expansion and power in the 7th century BCE.