The Legend of the Voyage of Himilco: The Exploration of the Tin Islands, the Sargasso Sea, and the Ocean Borders of Carthage
The Navigator of the Carthaginian Atlantic In the fifth century before the common era, during the golden era of the maritime empire of Carthage, the Carthaginian Senate commissioned a major expedition to explore the northern trade routes of the Atlantic Ocean. Led by the navigator Himilco (contemporary with Hanno the Navigator), the expedition sailed north from the Strait of Gibraltar, exploring the coasts of modern Spain, Portugal, and France, reaching the shores of Britain and the Tin Islands ( Cassiterides ), where the Carthaginians traded for the precious tin necessary to make bronze. The legend of Himilco is the mystery of the carthaginian secrecy . The Carthaginians, who held a monopoly on the Atlantic trade, kept their navigational routes as state secrets, spreading terrifying stories of the ocean to discourage their Greek rivals. Himilco's report, preserved in fragments by the Roman writer Rufus Festus Avienus in his geographical poem Ora Maritima (written in the fourt...