Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 1 (of 8): Aboriginal America
History
Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 1 (of 8): Aboriginal America
America -- Discovery and exploration; America -- History; United States -- History
The achievements of the Greeks and Romans were still more limited. A
certain Colaeus visited Gades towards the middle of the seventh century
B.C., and was, according to Herodotus, the first Greek who passed
outside of the columns of Hercules. His example could not have been
widely followed, for we find Pindar and his successors referring to the
Pillars as the limit of navigation. In 600 B.C., Massilia was founded,
and soon became a rival of Carthage in the western Mediterranean. In
the fourth century we have evidence of an attempt to search out the
secrets of the ocean after the manner of Hanno and Himilko. In that
century, Pytheas made his famous voyage to the lands of tin and amber,
discovering the still mysterious Thule; while at the same time his
countryman Euthymenes sailed southward to the Senegal. With these
exceptions we hear of no Grecian or Roman explorations in the Atlantic,
and meet with no indication that they were aware of any other lands
beyond the sea than the Fortunate Isles or the Hesperides of the early
poets.[311]
About 80 B.C., Sertorius, being for a time driven from Spain by the
forces of Sulla, fell in, when on an expedition to Baetica, with
certain sailors who had just returned from the “Atlantic islands,”
which they described as two in number, distant 10,000 stadia from
Africa, and enjoying a wonderful climate. The account in Plutarch is
quite consistent with a previous knowledge of the islands, even on
the part of Sertorius. Be this as it may, the glowing praises of the
eye-witnesses so impressed him that only the unwillingness of his
followers prevented his taking refuge there. Within the next few years,
the Canaries, at least, became well known as the _Fortunatae Insulae_;
but when Horace, in the dark days of civil war, urged his countrymen
to seek a new home across the waves, it was apparently the islands
of Sertorius that he had in mind, regarding them as unknown to other
peoples.[312]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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