This article possibly contains
original research. (January 2021) |
Between the first century BC and the fourth century AD, several expeditions and explorations to Lake Chad and western Africa were conducted by groups of military and commercial units of Romans who moved across the Sahara and into the interior of Africa and its coast. However, there was a more significant Roman and Greek presence in modern-day Eritrea and Ethiopia. The primary motivation for the expeditions was to secure sources of gold and spices from Axumite piracies. [1]
Romans referred to Sub-Saharan Africa as Aethiopia (Ethiopia), which referred to the people's "burned" skin.
Also, Romans had available the memoirs of the Ancient Carthage explorer, Hanno the Navigator, being referenced by the Roman Pliny the Elder (c. 23–79) [2] and the Greek Arrian of Nicomedia (c. 86–160). [3] However, how much they were read, believed, or found interesting to the Romans is unknown.
The Romans organized expeditions to cross the Sahara along five different routes:
All these expeditions were supported by legionaries and had mainly a commercial purpose. Only the one conducted by emperor Nero seemed to be a preparative for the conquest of Ethiopia or Nubia; in 62 AD, two legionaries explored the sources of the Nile. [5]
One of the main objectives of the explorations was to locate and obtain gold, using camels to transport it overland back to Roman provinces on the Mediterranean coast. [6]
The explorations near the coasts were supported by Roman ships and deeply related to overseas commerce.
The Romans conducted five main explorations: two in the western Sahara, two in the central Sahara, and one in the area of Lake Chad.
In western Sahara there were two Roman expeditions but, just south of the Atlas mountains:
From the first century AD there is evidence (coins and fibulae) of Roman commerce and contacts in Akjoujt and Tamkartkart near Tichit in Mauritania.
The two main explorations/expeditions in the central Sahara were:
However some historians (like Susan Raven [11]) believe that there was even another Roman expedition to sub-Saharan central Africa: the one of Valerius Festus, that could have reached the equatorial Africa thanks to the Niger River.
The Roman vassal king Juba II organized successful trade from the area of Volubilis. Pliny the Elder, who was not only an author but also a military officer, drawing upon the accounts of Juba II, king of Mauretania in the first century AD, stated that a Roman expedition from Mauritania visited the islands of the archipelago of the Canaries and Madeira around 10 AD and found great ruins but no population, only dogs (the basis of the name the Canaries).
According to Pliny the Elder, an expedition of Mauretanians sent by Juba II to the archipelago visited the islands: when King Juba II dispatched a contingent to re-open the dye production facility at Mogador (historical name of Essaouira, Morocco) in the early 1st century AD, Juba's naval force was subsequently sent to explore the Canary Islands, and possibly Madeira, using Mogador as their base.
Other Roman coins have been found in Nigeria and Niger, and also in Guinea, Togo, and Ghana. However, it is much more likely that all these coins were introduced at a much later date than that there was direct Roman intercourse so far down the western coast. No single article unmistakably originating in Africa south of the Equator has been discovered in the Graeco-Roman world or in contemporary Arabia, nor is there any mention of such an article in written records: while the coins are the only ancient European or Arabian articles that have been found in the central parts of Africa. [14]
The Romans had two naval outposts in the Atlantic coast of Africa: Sala Colonia near present Rabat and Mogador in southern Morocco (north of Agadir). The island of Mogador prospered from the local purple dye-making industry (highly esteemed in imperial Rome) from the reigns of Augustus until Septimius Severus. Augustus, based on the discovery of a sunken merchant ship from southern Hispania in the Djibouti area (found by his adoptive son Gaius Caesar when he sailed toward Aden), wanted to organize an expedition from Egypt to Mogador and Sala around Africa, but it seems that it never took place.
This article possibly contains
original research. (January 2021) |
Between the first century BC and the fourth century AD, several expeditions and explorations to Lake Chad and western Africa were conducted by groups of military and commercial units of Romans who moved across the Sahara and into the interior of Africa and its coast. However, there was a more significant Roman and Greek presence in modern-day Eritrea and Ethiopia. The primary motivation for the expeditions was to secure sources of gold and spices from Axumite piracies. [1]
Romans referred to Sub-Saharan Africa as Aethiopia (Ethiopia), which referred to the people's "burned" skin.
Also, Romans had available the memoirs of the Ancient Carthage explorer, Hanno the Navigator, being referenced by the Roman Pliny the Elder (c. 23–79) [2] and the Greek Arrian of Nicomedia (c. 86–160). [3] However, how much they were read, believed, or found interesting to the Romans is unknown.
The Romans organized expeditions to cross the Sahara along five different routes:
All these expeditions were supported by legionaries and had mainly a commercial purpose. Only the one conducted by emperor Nero seemed to be a preparative for the conquest of Ethiopia or Nubia; in 62 AD, two legionaries explored the sources of the Nile. [5]
One of the main objectives of the explorations was to locate and obtain gold, using camels to transport it overland back to Roman provinces on the Mediterranean coast. [6]
The explorations near the coasts were supported by Roman ships and deeply related to overseas commerce.
The Romans conducted five main explorations: two in the western Sahara, two in the central Sahara, and one in the area of Lake Chad.
In western Sahara there were two Roman expeditions but, just south of the Atlas mountains:
From the first century AD there is evidence (coins and fibulae) of Roman commerce and contacts in Akjoujt and Tamkartkart near Tichit in Mauritania.
The two main explorations/expeditions in the central Sahara were:
However some historians (like Susan Raven [11]) believe that there was even another Roman expedition to sub-Saharan central Africa: the one of Valerius Festus, that could have reached the equatorial Africa thanks to the Niger River.
The Roman vassal king Juba II organized successful trade from the area of Volubilis. Pliny the Elder, who was not only an author but also a military officer, drawing upon the accounts of Juba II, king of Mauretania in the first century AD, stated that a Roman expedition from Mauritania visited the islands of the archipelago of the Canaries and Madeira around 10 AD and found great ruins but no population, only dogs (the basis of the name the Canaries).
According to Pliny the Elder, an expedition of Mauretanians sent by Juba II to the archipelago visited the islands: when King Juba II dispatched a contingent to re-open the dye production facility at Mogador (historical name of Essaouira, Morocco) in the early 1st century AD, Juba's naval force was subsequently sent to explore the Canary Islands, and possibly Madeira, using Mogador as their base.
Other Roman coins have been found in Nigeria and Niger, and also in Guinea, Togo, and Ghana. However, it is much more likely that all these coins were introduced at a much later date than that there was direct Roman intercourse so far down the western coast. No single article unmistakably originating in Africa south of the Equator has been discovered in the Graeco-Roman world or in contemporary Arabia, nor is there any mention of such an article in written records: while the coins are the only ancient European or Arabian articles that have been found in the central parts of Africa. [14]
The Romans had two naval outposts in the Atlantic coast of Africa: Sala Colonia near present Rabat and Mogador in southern Morocco (north of Agadir). The island of Mogador prospered from the local purple dye-making industry (highly esteemed in imperial Rome) from the reigns of Augustus until Septimius Severus. Augustus, based on the discovery of a sunken merchant ship from southern Hispania in the Djibouti area (found by his adoptive son Gaius Caesar when he sailed toward Aden), wanted to organize an expedition from Egypt to Mogador and Sala around Africa, but it seems that it never took place.