A continuation of a series about ancient travels.

This is the story of a group of Phoenician sailors who undertook a journey that was extraordinary for its time. Even though we do not know the names of any of the individual sailors involved, I thought that a journey like this should not be skipped in this series.

Herodotus

Herodotus, the ancient Greek historian, lived in the fifth century BC and produced a work called “The Histories“. He was called “The Father of History” by Cicero, but was called “The Father of Lies” by Voltaire. This points up two facts: Herodotus was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent, and arrange them in a well-constructed and vivid narrative; but also the fact that some of his stories were fanciful and others inaccurate, although he claimed he was reporting only what had been told to him. It has been said of herodotus that he was “quite scrupulous, objective, scientific for his time.” And some of the things that he wrote about that were
considered fanciful have later been borne out as true.

Herodotus was in Egypt at some time and while he was there he discovered a story that happened about 150 years earlier.

Egyptian King Necho

Egyptian king Necho II (Wehimbre Nekao) was involved with many battles and also with an attempt to build a canal between the Nile and the Red Sea.

In about the year 600 BC, he is said to have commissioned a group of Phoenicians to sail around Africa. According to Herodotus, they sailed east to west beginning from the Red Sea, south along the eastern coast and then north along the western coast of Africa. (No mention is made of rounding what we call the Cape of Good Hope.) They stopped each fall to plant crops to sustain them on their trip. They spent two years sailing around the continent and in the third year, returned through the Gates of Hercules to the Mediterranean and then made their way back to Egypt.

There is much controversy about this account, with many people doubting that it ever happened. But there is one line in the story by Herodotus that leads us to believe that it may have actually taken place.

In his story, Herodotus writes that as they traveled east to west, “they had the sun on their right” - to the north of them.

When people sail in the Mediterranean, the sun is to the south of them, because they are above the equator. So when they sail east to west, the sun would be to their left.

However, in that time, people thought that the earth was a flat disk, with the Mediterranean in the center and the countries around it, with all of it surrounded by the “river of ocean.” They had no concept of the earth being a sphere, with an equator. So they had no idea that the sun might be in a different position as you go below the equator.

Herodotus appears to have believed the story of the Phoenician expedition around Africa, but he doubted the idea that the sun could have been to their right as they sailed east to west. But this is the greatest evidence that these sailors did circumnavigate Africa over 2,000 years before the first Portuguese expedition by Bartolomeu Dias in 1488 which reached the Cape of Good Hope and entered the Indian Ocean, and the subsequent journey ten years later by Vasco da Gama, who led the first fleet around Africa to India.