Page 330 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

330 from Italy to the Canary Islands

tic, known as Hanno’s Periplus. It is hard to say whether it was actually
penned by Hanno himself; it could be a Greek version of an original Punic
text, and as for its time frame, historians speak of an oscillation between
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the second half of the 4 century and the early 2 century BC.
Hanno is described as “the king of the Carthaginians” but also as
Carthaginensium dux and Poenorum imperator. The last two definitions
belong to Pliny and are from his work Naturalis Historia.
According to the narration, this expedition included women, an impor-
tant aspect that is in some respects unique. Their role was to ensure eth-
nic continuity through endogamous marriages. Elissa chose to kill herself
rather than marry the Libyan king Iarbas.
It is impossible to tell whether this expedition included the Canary Is-
lands. An initial exploration around the Pillars of Hercules was followed
by actual navigation, at which point the island of Cerne took on impor-
tance as an advanced base from which to move forward.
It is difficult to shed light on the places touched by the Carthaginians
using Hanno’s text. We can probably assume that they reached the Gulf of
Guinea and sailed along the coasts of what is now Morocco. However, it
would be very difficult to claim that they reached the Canary Islands.
As we said, the island of Cerne was an important basis for further move-
ment. It now seems to be certain that Cerne was Mogador, an island that
even then was very important as far as commerce, being the place from
where products from the African interior could reach the Atlantic.
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According to Pseudo Scylax, whose Periplus dates back to the 4 cen-
tury BC, the island of Cerne/Mogador was set as the southern limit for
Phoenician-Punic commercial navigations in the Atlantic.
Polybius’ expedition in 146 BC must have been quite an event. The
journey crossed the Pillars of Hercules with strategic intents: navigation
tests, sea studies, knowledge of the territories, reports of little known ar-
eas. Unfortunately, any reference to such enterprise is minimal and what
remains of that expedition is little more than a statement by Pliny in his
Naturalis Historia.
There are many names that appear in the ancient world, and among
them is Eudoxus of Cnidus, one of the greatest mathematicians of Antiqui-
ty. His is the Method of exhaustion, a way to calculate areas and volumes
of solids, and also the Theory of the elements, a formula for finding the
volume of a pyramid and other mathematical proofs that would later be
enunciated in Book V of Euclid’s Elements. Additional works by Eudoxus