104 EXPEDITIONS BEFORE ALEXANDER. [CHAP.
ineffectual voyage, or not long after, two remarkable expeditions
were despatched to the Pillars of Hercules by
the Carthaginians, to explore the Atlantic coasts
of Africa and Europe respectively. The names
of the commanders of these were Hanno and Himilco, and the
object with which they were sent was not so much to discover
unknown lands, as to establish colonies and trading stations in
those regions, and to reinforce those already existing there. The
Hanno here spoken of has been with some probability identified
with the son of that Hamilcar who invaded Sicily in 480 B.C.,
and was defeated and slain at the battle of Himera1; and on this
supposition we may fix the date of his expedition approximately at
470 B.C. After his return to Carthage he composed
a ^riQf account of his voyage, which was inscribed
on a bronze or marble tablet, and dedicated in the
temple of Cronos (Moloch) in that city; and by great good
fortune a Greek version of this has come down to us, under the
title of the Periplus or Coasting Survey of Hanno. From this we
learn that he sailed from Carthage with a company of men and
women to the number of thirty thousand—who were evidently
intended to be left at the trading stations, and must have been
conveyed on board of transports, though this is not stated—and
with a fleet of sixty penteconters, which formed the escort. The
first half of their voyage after they passed the Straits, in the course
of which they established the settlements which were their primary
object, was occupied in reaching an island named
Cerne. The determination of this place is the most
important point in connexion with the geography of
the expedition, and it has been fixed with some certainty at an
island now called Herne, the similarity of name forming one
element in the process of identification. The last-named island is
small, and lies in the recesses of a deep bay—at the mouth of the
Rio de Ouro—both which features are attributed by Hanno to
Cerne; its distance from the Straits of Gibraltar also corresponds
better than that of any other place which has been suggested
with the reckoning of the Carthaginian, who says that they found
1 See C. Miiller's Prolegg. to his Geogr. Gr. Minores, vol. I. pp. xxi, xxiL