phoenician circumnavegation of africa

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The Alleged Phoenician Circumnavigation of Africa: Considered in Relation to the Theory of aSouth African OphirAuthor(s): E. J. WebbSource: The English Historical Review, Vol. 22, No. 85 (Jan., 1907), pp. 1-14Published by: Oxford University Press

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THE ENGLISH

HISTORICAL REV I EW

NO. LXXXV.-JANUARY I907 *

The Alleged Phoenzc-anCircumnavigation

of Africa

Consideredzn Relation to the Theory

of a South African Opfhir

THE surprise with which many people accepted Mr. Randall-MacIver'sdemonstration hat the great age of Zimbabwehad

been taken for granted rather than proved shows how easily atheory may win popular acceptance f it appeal,as did the theoryof a South African Ophir, to popular sentiment, and may addforce to the suggestion to be advanced in this paper, that thelegend of a Phoeniciancircumnavigation,attractive as it certainlyis, has little in it beside this attractiveness to justify its wideacceptance in modern times.' For undoubtedly the famousstory, told by Herodotus, that certain Phoenicians in Egyptian

employsucceeded,some six hundred

yearsbefore

Christ,in

sailingall the wayroundAfrica,has been acquiring trength in its progressthrough what we are accustomed o considera criticalage. When,forinstance,we find, in the vast GermanWorld'sHistory, published

I A brief abstract of the following paper appeared in the Geographical Journal for

September 1906, and evoked some criticisms, to which its author hopes that the full

text of the article will be found to have, in anticipation, supplied an answer. The

article was written before the results of Mr. MacIver's inquiries into the age of the

South African ruins had been made known, and therefore when the believers in the

high antiquity of these ruins were more numerous than they are now or are ever

likely to be again.VOL. XXII.-NO. LXXXV. B

* All rights reserved.







1907 CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF AFRICA 3

between the Nile and the Arabian Gulf, sent to sea a number of shipsmanned by Phoenicians,with ordersto make for the Pillars of Hercules,

and return to Egypt through them, and by the Mediterranean. ThePhoenicians took their departure romEgypt by way of the ErythraeanSea, and so sailed into the southern ocean. When autumn came, theywent ashore,whereverthey might happento be, and having sown a tractof land with corn,waited until the grainwas fit to cut. Having reapedit, they again set sail; and thus it came to passthat two whole years wentby, and it was not till the third year that they doubled the Pillars ofHercules, and made good their voyage home. On their return, theydeclared-I formy part do not believe them, but perhaps others may-

that in sailing round Libya they had the sun upon their right hand. Inthis way was the extent of Libya first discovered. Next to thesePhoeniciansthe Carthaginians,accordingto their own account, made thevoyage. For Sataspes, son of Teaspes, the Achaemenian, did notcircumnavigateLibya, though he was sent to do so.6

I have continued the quotation rather further than is usual, in

order to bring out a point which is generally overlooked. Herodotus

seems to mention, or rather to hint at, more than one circum-

navigation; his followers seem to understand him as speaking onlyof one. And, indeed, a Carthaginian circumnavigation cannot

easily be accepted; for if Rawlinson, in the last two sentences

quoted, rightly interprets a rather ambiguous passage,7 we must

understand that there was a Carthaginian success, anrd perhaps

also that it was later than the failure of Sataspes, who, as

Herodotus goes on to tell us, lived in the reign of Xerxes (485-

465 B.C.) It may therefore have taken place even within the life-

time of Herodotus himself. Surely it is strange that so recent an

adventure should have passed, as it must, almost immediatelyinto complete oblivion.

How too are we to reconcile such a story with the history of

Hanno's voyage down the West African coast, of which a very

remarkable narrative has come down to us in a Greek translation ?

One can hardly read this fascinating story without perceiving that,

6 Herod. iv. 42. Atv86snv -yap 6oXAoZwVTurv oOioa reptppVwros, vxAjv 5aoo av'7js irpbs

Tr~VAovi-A v o?p"[Ce NEK&broi A2yv7r'rwv 9aaaTAfXos rpcaSov TOV 'f7LS IBAEV KarTae'taCToS.

'Os greft re rv BctpvXa 7racTa'ro LovwJ 'rjv fK 'ro Ne(Xov BLe'XOvJoaV fs rbv 'ApdBSov

K6A7roV, a'fWfe'v4EA -o(vuIas &v0pas vAolotoi, 4TreAXdevos 4s 0'r6o1w ' 'HpaKAIXtwv oT"1XAE'Wv

L,EK7rAXEEiev S fSTgs oprtnv edXOdao'oav, Kal og'rw fs A-yuvrTov a7rLKive'ea0ai. 'OpA7q0E'vTTs

dn ol' 4OtlKes fK ris 'Epvepfs eaAxdiov-s, EiTrEov ri4v ,o'rTv OdNaoooaw. "OKwS sf ylvoLro

4p0vd7rwpo,v, rpoo-[toxovrEs &v oi7rE1peoiov'rh*jv -yjv, Tva Kdao('ror uJs AL$i6JS rJ'OrTes 7LIotiarO,

Kaic e'VfeKoV rbv 61A?rrov' Oepl'pfaac'es v rbv ao7To'sv, .XEov- &%orf 66O gre'Wv 6tEEA064VTWv,

TpITCP &Ter Kcdt*aivres 'HpaKcXtas o"TAas, &artKco'T0o fs Ayvrrov. Kal fAeyov, E'Aol 'V oV'

ma7*Ta &AAXc f MrE, &s 7reporXcSo'res rhv A$V1Yv, 'rbv )e'XAOV Eo'Xov fS ra Selid. OUrw

pfv aVTh 4vcaSoPGt7Tb 7rp6irop.Mera f, KapXfl8%tVoLelOt 01 AXe"oivres. 'Evel 2a'rdo-wavs e

6 Tedo'7rosos &vp 'AXatju/EvtrRs,ov lrep'Lw7roA'cEAt$i71qv, f aCerb 'roiro rEAfpOls.

7 Gaisford's interpretation-cognovisse se circumfitam esse Africam-seems

correct. Of course this practically amounts to the same thing as Rawlinson's ampli-fication. An opposition between Tb 7rpTrov and MueraOf is clearly intended.

B 2








ended the coast would be found to turn westwardsand run in thatdirectiontowardsthe Pillars of Hercules. It is surely an amazing

thing, if a voyage round Africa was ever accomplished,that itshouldnot have given rise to any sort of a traditionas to the trueshape and, great size of that continent. Had it done so it couldhardlyhave been cited, only a centuryand a half after its accom-plishment,in support of a theory which it should have renderedonce for all untenable.

Here I would,for the first time, call attention to what seems tome an inconsistencyin those who, while upholdingthe Phoenician

legend,at the same timne equireour belief in a much earlier com-merce of SemiticmarinerswithauriferousSouth Africa. To accountfor the profound ignorance of Greek geographersas to the veryexistence of such a region we must suppose that this commercehad ceased before Hellenic times, or at least had been kept secretwith extraordinarysuccess. Surely an Egyptian expedition in600 B.C. wouldhave gone far to revive memoriesof the past or tothrow a light on the present.

Other difficulties now present themselves. One,as we know,was obvious to Herodotus himself. His disciples, on the otherhand, have tried to explain away just that part of the story onwhich his own faith was doubtless founded. For we shall findthose who accept, or profess to accept, the story of Herodotusrejecting,or passing lightly over, what to him was an essentialpart of it, namely, the fable of the autumnal harvests; while, aswill be shown,they spoil the story thus reconstructedby acceptingthat part, namely, the account of a sun seen on the right hand,

which the historianhimself rejected.Of this wonderful voyage, the most wonderful perhaps ever

made by man, if it really took place, Herodotus tells us threethings-that the expedition lasted into the third year, that it sup-ported.itself by raising crops from seed which it carriedwith it,and that it reportedhaving the sun on the right hand, a statementwhich is usually, if rather boldly,interpreted to mean that thenoontidesun was seen in the north. On the first point-much hasbeen written, but the question whether the time assigned is toolong or not long enough depends for its answer entirely on theview taken as to the second point. Herodotus clearly believedmuch time to have been taken up with the harvestoperations,andit is here that the wide divergence becomes apparentbetween thehistorianhimself and the professedbelieversin his narrative. He,having no suspicion that there existed any of the vast regionswhich we now call South Africa, imagined his- Phoenicians, sosoon as they had emergedfrom the Red Sea, to have entered im-

mediately upon an unknown and inhospitable, though compara-tively short stretch of coast-line. They, knowing the vastness of







6 THE ALLEGED PHOENICIAN Jan.

the country, have felt themselves obliged to argue that it was notunknown and inhospitable, and in fact have shown a strange

unanimity in maintaining that South Africa not only existed, butwas already a well-known and frequented region, the trade withSofala having been carried on since Solomon's time. Modernwriters on Zimbabwepush back the beginning of this traffic to anage still more remote.

Now the most curious part of this argument is not that its up-holdersinsist upon knowingmore than Herodotus about a storyfor which no authority whatever,save that of Herodotus himself,

exists; it is that they should agreein taking his supposedmentionof a northerlysun as a confirmationof his story, whereas, if weaccept the theory of an alreadyestablished South African traderoute, it ceases at once to have any force at all. The only reasonfor attaching any importanceto this statemnenties in the supposi-tion that it could not have been invented. 'Who does not feel,'cries Heeren,'1 ' how impossible it was for them to have imaginedthis fact?' Yet Heeren has just been arguingthat thePhoeniciansmust have had an acquaintance with South Africa of such longstanding as to have made them fully conversantwith the properseasons for sowing and reaping. Why then should any call upontheir imaginationbe required? At Sofala, in latitude 200 south,the middaysun is to be seen in the north for much the greaterpart of the year; and it is impossible to suppose that people whotraded regularlywith that port did not know this. If the Phoeni-cians really came back fromthe far south to startle the worldwiththe tale of a northerly sun it shows very clearly that they can

never have been to the far south before.Since, therefore,this tale of the sun, even if we regardit as

fiction, goes against the theory that the world had long beenfamiliar with the phenomena of the southern hemisphere, it issingularthat those whostronglyadvocatethat theoryshould extendtheir protection to the Phoenician legend. What they feel, nodoubt,is the difficultyof admittingthat so much which must havebeen commonknowledge n the time of Solomoncan have entirelydisappearedfrom the worldby the time of Necho; and they havefailed to perceivethat the story of the expedition, n the only formin which it is told, rather necessitates this admission than avoidsit. But to earlier, perhaps more diligent inquirers, such asRennell, the main reason for presupposingan acquaintance withSofala was the great difficulty,whichwe have now to consider,ofexplainingotherwisehow the expeditionobtainedits supplies. Forit was-and is-clear that the explanationgiven by Herodotuswillnot do for us. To Vincent,that careful historian of ancient com-

merce and navigation, this difficulty appearedinsuperable. He" Researches, ii. 76 (English transl.)








equator and each of the tropical circles twice? Is it not remark-able that a crew of farmers shouldhave broughtback no notice of

an invertedyear, unless we are to recognisesuch in the doubtfulallusion to a northerly sun ?

This allusion is the most curious statement in the story ofHerodotus, the one, it has been well said,15which, while it madehim doubtful,has caused his critics to lay doubt aside-the state-ment that the Phoenicians reported the sun on their right hand.I must again point out that, if this be taken, as it usually is, forproof of a genuine observationof the noontide sun at the Cape of

GoodHope, it should also be taken as a proof that the observershad not been so far-nor indeed anywhere nearly so far-southbefore. In people already accustomed to the traffic with Sofalaa northerly sun would have excitedno surprisewhatever.

But does Herodotusreally speakof a northerlysun ? It seemsto be, and to have been,'6 generally agreed that he does. EvenVincent, who entirely disbelieved he Phoenician legend, mentionstheir reportof ' the shadow falling to the south,' just as if Hero-dotus had actually used any such words. Is it, I ask with somediffidence,quite so certain that Herodotusreally meant his expres-sion to be so understood? What he makes the Phoenicians say isthat they had the sun on their right hand, not at a particularpoint of their voyage, but ' in sailing,' or apparently all the timethey were sailing, ' round Libya.' This was more than he couldbelieve, though he thought apparently that the credulity of othersmight go so far.

It will be allowed that to have the sun on the right hand is

no very unusual experience n any part of the world. To accountfor its being incredible, or even surprising,to any one we mustassume that the observers are to be understoodas having seen thesun there either always or at some time when one would haveexpectedit to be elsewhere. The languageof Herodotus seems initself to imply the former alternative. For in their literal sensehis words certainly suggest that, during the whole of theirvoyage roundAfrica,the Phoenicianssaw the sun to their right-never to their left, as it should have been in the morningsas theysailedsouthwards, n the evenings as they sailednorthwards. Sucha tale, it may perhaps be said, would be too extravagant for anyone to believe. Herodotus at any rate did not believe it. Yet Icannot think it wholly impossible that this may really have beenwhat the informants of Herodotus intended him to believe. Itseems extravagantto us, and would have seemed so to Greeks ofthe scientific age, but Herodotus was born beforethat age. He

'5 Mannert, Geogracphie er CGriechen nd Romer, i. 20.16 It will be seen from a comparison of Rawlinson, Herod. i. 95, with iii. 33, note,

that this critic did not understand the argument which he regarded as irresistible.








has himself discussed 7 the possibility that the sun's southwardmovement in winter is due to the pressure of northerly winds.

We have no reasonto suppose that the Egyptians of his day, orof any previous day, were better informed. May not the pre-tended sanction of the Phoenicianstory have been given to someold-worldlegend,accordingto which Africa, the torridcontinent,was the sun's retreat and abode,in such wise that whosoevercouldgo round Africa would go roundhim?

If this idea be rejected-and perhaps no more can be urgedin its favour than that it is the idea suggested by the actual

unparaphrasedwords of Herodotus-we have to take up thesecond alternative, that Herodotus understood the sun to havebeen seen on the Phoenicians' right at a time when he, andpresumablythey, would have expectedto see it somewhere else.Now mariners sailing from north to south, as the Phoeniciansmust have done at first, would expect to see the sun on theirright at its setting. When sailing back from south to norththey would expect to see it there at its rising. And when sailingback to the east from the Pillars of Hercules they would expectto see it on their right at noon. But when sailing from east towest at the south of Africa they might, if they were accustomedonly to the northern temperate zone, expectto see it on their leftat noon, and never full to the right at any time of the day.And this is why it has been assumed that we are to understandHerodotus as surprised at hearing of a noontide sun seen onthe right hand, and therefore to the north, by mariners sailingfrom east to west. For by the inhabitantsof northernclimes, such

as the Phoenicians, the Greeks,and ourselves, he sun is neverseenin such a position; and it is supposed, possiblywith truth, thata Greekof the early age in which Herodotuslived might be unableto conceiveof its being so seen by anyone anywhere.

But granting all this, admitting that we are to understand hePhoenicians as reporting, to the amazementof Herodotus-andpresumablyof themselves,or they would not have reported t-that the sun at midday stood in the north, do we obtain any con-vincing or even suggestiveevidencethat the Phoenicians had beenat the Cape? To me it seems certain that no such inferencecanbe drawn. The argumentof the believersis of course that a storywhichcannot have been invented must be true. But if we beginby admitting for the moment that the story could have beeninvented, does not its phraseologystrongly suggest that it actuallywas invented ? We have no right to assume that Herodotusdoesnot correctly represent the language of his informants, and itseems strange that he, and probablytherefore they, shouldmen-

tion a phenomenonwhich could have only occurredat one part of1" Herod. ii. 24.








critics seem to think so; ancient critics, in such a matter perhapsthe better judges, certainly did not. It is, for some reason, not

generallyunderstood hat the sphericityof the earth is no moderndiscovery. The modern world in fact received the doctrine notfrom Copernicus,but from Ptolemy. The Greeks of the Alex-andrian age perfectly understoodhow the apparent positions ofthe heavenlybodies were,or rather would be, affected by a greatchangein the observer'slatitude. Yet no ancient critic seems tohave been in the least impressed by a statement which so manyin later times have found convincing.

The reason, I cannot but think, is that the modern scholarisgenerally less conversant than was the ancient with elementaryastronomy. So curious a misapprehensionas that of Rawlinson,19who apparently believed the Phoenicians to have recorded theoriginal observationthat the sun had risen in the east, mnay eexceptional. But the statement of Larchner that after passingthe line ' the Phoenicians must necessarilyhave had the sun onthe right hand '20 iS, of course, quite untrue, and Grote21 is oneof the few among the upholders of the story who seem to have

clearlyrealisedthat to see the midday sun in the north it is notnecessaryto visit the Cape,nor even to cross the equator. To seeit there always one must indeed be south of the southerntropic;to see it there generally one must be south of the equator. Butmerely to have seen it there proves no more than that theobserver has been south of the .tropicof Cancer. And so muchhad been accomplished, if by few or no Greeks in the time ofHerodotus, yet by thousands of men belonging to races with

which the Greekshad long been in contact.The famous calculation by which Eratosthenes in the third

century B.C. determined the approximatesize of the earth wasbased upon a comparisonof an Alexandriandial with one at Syene,where an upright gnomonwas reportedto cast no noontideshadowat the summersolstice. To press such a fact into the service ofscience an Eratosthenesmay well have been needed; but the factitself, that the midsummer sun was vertical at Syene, mustsurely have been notorious to the Egyptians for ages beforethe intrusion of the Greeks. Onceit had been observed,as it musthave been for many generations,that the short noontide shadowsof Egypt became shorter and shorter as one went southwards,until in the neighbourhoodof the First Cataractat midsummerthey disappearedaltogether, it wouldsurely be withinthe reach ofingenuity to infer that if one went further south still the shadowwouldreappear,pointing liow no longer to the north but to the

'9 Rawlinson, Herod. iii. 33, note.20 Larchner, Notes on Herodotus, English version. The remarks of Cooley,

Larclhner'sEnglish editor, on the Phoenician expedition are very sensible."I Grote, History, part ii. chap. 18.







14 THE CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF AFRICA Jan.

if they should be convinced hat the Phoen.cian egend tells, not fortheir theories, but actuallyagainst them, might be readyto subjectthe legend itself to a more searching criticism, which, as I havetried to show,it is little fitted to withstand.

I will concludeby recapitulating he main contentionsadvancedin this paper.

I. The story of the PhoenicianvoyageroundAfrica rests uponevidence which either is insufficient, as all ancient authoritiesseem to have thought,24 r must be taken as justifying a belief inanothercircumnavigationwhichno modernauthorityupholds. The

feat appears,when we consider the magnitude and novelty of theenterprise and the slender resources of ancient navigation,to bewell-nighimpossible. It appearedpossible to Herodotus becausehe didnot realise its magnitude,anddidbelievethat his Phoeniciansobtainedtheir supplies by a method whichto modernwritersseemsso little credible that, even while professing to accept his story,they have generally rejected this essential part of it. The expe-dition did nothing to correct or prevent theories as to the shape

and size of Africa,or as to the climate of equatorialregions,whichit should once for all have rendered impossible. The one pieceof evidence which is at first sight impressive,and has been pro-nouncedconclusive,has really little or no weight. The co'mmonbelief that a northerlysun couldnot have been inventedhas some-times been encouragedby want of acquaintance with elementaryastronomyand with ancient ideas thereof.

II. But if the story be acceptedas true it tells stronglyagainstthe theory that Solomonand earlier Semitic princes brought gold

from South Africa. For if we adoptthe only version of it whichhas any authorityat all, that of Herodotus, it showsplainly thatall the knowledgeof South Africa,its ports and its climates,whichmust have been possessed by the Phoeniciansof Solomon'stimehad failed to descend to the Phoeniciansof Necho'stime. Whileif we considerourselvesat liberty to reject such parts of the storyas tend to this conclusion-and the tale of the northerly sun, be itremembered,is one of those parts-we have to explain how so

much of what must have been commonknowledge n Necho'stimehad vanishedutterly fromthe worldby the time of Herodotus,andby the time apparentlyof Hanno, the Carthaginian.

III. While the acceptance of the Phoenician legend is almostfatal to the theory of a South African Ophir,its rejectioncan byno means strengthenthe case in favour of that theory. The veryexistence of such a legend in a worldto which the coast of equa-torial Africa had been known for centuries would be in itself amystery.

E. J. WEBB.24 of course no geographer who, like Polybius and Ptolemy, inclined to believe

that southern Africa was joined to Asia can have put faith in the story of Herodotus.

phoenician circumnavegation of africa

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