Note Back to Main Text — Chapter IV · THE SEARCH FOR THE INDIES. EASTWARD OR PORTUGUESE ROUTE.

These views of Hipparchus and Ptolemy took no heed of the story told to Herodotus of the circumnavigation of Africa by a Phœnician Story of the Phœnician voyage, in the time of Necho. squadron at some time during the reign of Necho in Egypt (610-595 B. C.).[346] The Phœnician ships were said to have sailed from the Red Sea and to have returned through the Mediterranean in the third year after starting. In each of the two autumn seasons they stopped and sowed grain and waited for it to ripen, which in southern Africa would require ten or twelve weeks.[347] On their return to Egypt they declared ("I for my part do not believe them," says Herodotus, "but perhaps others may") that in thus sailing from east to west around Africa they had the sun upon their right hand. About this alleged voyage there has been a good deal of controversy.[348] No other expedition in any wise comparable to it for length and difficulty can be cited from ancient history, and a critical scholar is inclined to look with suspicion upon all such accounts of unique and isolated events. As we have not the details of the story, it is impossible to give it a satisfactory critical examination. The circumstance most likely to convince us of its truth is precisely that which dear old Herodotus deemed incredible. The position of the sun, to the north of the mariners, is something that could hardly have been imagined by people familiar only with the northern hemisphere. It is therefore almost certain that Necho's expedition sailed beyond the equator.[349] But that is as far as inference can properly carry us; for our experience of the uncritical temper of ancient narrators is enough to suggest that such an achievement might easily be magnified by rumour into the story told, more than a century after the event, to Herodotus. The data are too slight to justify us in any dogmatic opinion. One thing, however, is clear. Even if the circumnavigation was effected,—which, on the whole, seems improbable,—it remained quite barren of results. It produced no abiding impression upon men's minds[350] and added nothing to geographical knowledge. The veil of mystery was not lifted from southern Africa. The story was doubted by Strabo and Posidonius, and passed unheeded, as we have seen, by Hipparchus and Ptolemy.