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ruled Egypt from 610 to 595 BCE, when he suggested to his Phoenician
allies an exploratory journey to see if Africa was surrounded by water. We
do not know his motives, and we do not know the name of the Phoenician
captain or the number of his ships or crew. What we do know comes from
later writers, principally the Greek historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus.
4
Herodotus tells us, in his
Histories
, that the Phoenicians set out from the
Red Sea (familiar waters, being close to home) and proceeded down the
east coast of Africa. They traveled for three years, stopping seasonally to
plant wheat and staying long enough to harvest it before moving on. The
sailors expressed surprise that, when they were at the southern point of
Africa, heading due west, the sun was on their starboard side (that is, to the
right, or north side). Aided by winds and currents on their southern jour-
ney, they were hindered by both once they headed northward, up the west
coast of Africa. Eventually they passed through the Pillars of Hercules (the
Strait of Gibraltar) into the western Mediterranean. Once there, the Phoe-
nicians were back in familiar waters, and no doubt much relieved, they
journeyed across the sea to their home port.
Herodotus discounts some of the reports that he quotes (his sources are
lost). Later, when the hugely influential Ptolemy announced that circum-
navigation of Africa was impossible, the whole story of the Phoenician
circumnavigation was dismissed, though modern historians consider it
plausible. Ironically, the very same point that Herodotus disbelieved is the
clincher: of course the sun would be to the north of a west-sailing ship in
the southern hemisphere. To Herodotus, however, the sun must always be
to the south (because it always appeared south of the Greek world). Here
was a hint: a northerly sun indicated that world was not flat, but round.
5
It would be 2,000 years before Africa would next be circumnavigated by
man, and the world would be a very di√erent place. Trade would still be
a motivation for exploration, but power—and maritime expertise—had
shifted to the other end of the Mediterranean. Consequently, the next
circumnavigation would be counterclockwise.
4. Halicarnassus is modern Bodrum, in southeastern Turkey, then part of the Greek
world. The Greeks would go on to found many cities on the northern side of the Mediter-
ranean, from Turkey to southern France, as we will see. Herodotus wrote a century after the
Phoenicians' epic journey, at a time when Greece was on the rise and Phoenicia had given
way to its successor, Carthage.
5. The accounts of Herodotus and of other classical authors are widely available. For an
annotated translation of Herodotus's
Histories
, see, for example, de Selincourt (2003).
