Voyage of the Periplus

Hanno the Navigator · 500 BCE · Earth

Voyage of the Periplus — Hanno the Navigator · 500 BCE · Earth — Recorded expedition route · schematic map

Sail beyond the Pillars of Hercules and found cities of the Libyphoenicians on the Atlantic coast of Africa.

Historical context

Carthage was the greatest maritime power of the western Mediterranean, planting colonies along its trade routes. Hanno's voyage pushed that expansion beyond the Pillars of Hercules into the Atlantic. His report, which he is said to have dedicated in a temple at Carthage, survives only in an abridged Greek translation and gives no date; scholars have proposed dates from about 570 to 470 BCE.

The voyage, step by step

  1. Sailing from Carthage

    500 BCE

    A fleet of sixty ships carrying colonists and supplies leaves Carthage and passes the Pillars of Hercules.

  2. Colonies on the Atlantic coast

    500 BCE

    Past a wooded cape where they raise an altar to Poseidon, the colonists found cities by the sea along the Moroccan shore, then make friends with the herders of the river Lixus.

  3. The island of Cerne

    500 BCE

    Sailing south along a desert shore, the fleet settles a small island in a bay and names it Cerne, then reaches a river full of crocodiles and hippopotami before turning back to the island.

  4. The Chariot of the Gods

    500 BCE

    Twelve more days south, past fires along the shore and a blazing mountain called the Chariot of the Gods, the fleet reaches the Horn of the South, where its provisions give out.

Outcome

Founded cities on the Moroccan coast and a settlement on the island of Cerne, then sailed south until provisions failed; how far the fleet went is disputed, and the report survives only in a Greek translation.

Hanno the Navigator

Carthaginian admiral who led a colonising fleet down the Atlantic coast of Africa and left the earliest surviving first-hand account of the region.

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Sources

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