Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-wtssw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-07T13:05:05.306Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Periplus of Hanno in the History and Historiography of Black Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

P.E.H. Hair
P.E.H. Hair*
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Periplus of Hanno describes a purported Carthaginian voyage down the coast of western Africa—a voyage to as far as Guinea in the opinion of some scholars. The brief text is of doubtful and at best partial historical authenticity; and in any case its account of the later part of the voyage concentrates on a few episodes of high drama and exotic observation, at the expense of those other detailed particulars which might have made the Periplus, if historical, an informative as well as unique documentary source on black Africa in the first millennium B.C.. At least as far as black Africa is concerned, it must be questioned whether the Periplus is worth a fraction of the intensive scholarly effort that has been spent on it during the past four hundred years.

Current debate among ancient historians and classical philologists turns on the nature of the Periplus: is it wholly fiction? or, if fact, is it fact fictitiously extended and embellished? or, a third possibility, is it fact dramatically and perhaps intentionally summarized and slanted? But from the point of view of the historian seeking to obtain information about early sub-Saharan Africa in general and west Africa in particular, this debate can be by-passed (hence the present paper does not need or attempt to comprehend, pursue, or augment the detailed scholarly arguments and evidence available in the literature). For whether based on fact or not, the Periplus is patently a piece of literature of a kind which does not afford precise historical information.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 14 , 1987 , pp. 43 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aly 1927 Aly, F.E.W., “Die Entdeckung des Westens,” Hermes, 62: 229-341, 485–89Google Scholar
Bochart 1646 Bochart, Samuel, Geographiae sacrae… pars altera, Chanaan, seu de eoloniis et sermone Phoenicum, Caen [pt.2, lib.1, cap. 37]Google Scholar
Bougainville 1759/1761 de Bougainville, Jean Pierre, “Mémoire sur les découvertes et les establissemens faits le long des côtes d'Afrique par Hannon, amiral de Carthage,” Mémoires de l'Aaadémie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 26: 10-45; 28: 260–317Google Scholar
Burton 1863 Burton, Richard, Abeokuta and the Cameroons Mountains, London [2: 209]Google Scholar
Carcopino 1943 Carcopino, Jerôme, Le Maroc antique, Paris [my pagination is that of the 1947 revised edition]Google Scholar
Clarke 1848 Clarke, John, Specimens of Dialects, Berwick-upon-Tweed, reprinted with additions by Ardener, E. and Ardener, S., London, 1972Google Scholar
Desanges 1978 Desanges, Jehan, Recherches sur l'activité des Mediterranéens aux confins de l'Afrique (VIe siècle avant J.-C.-IVe siècle après J.-C.), Rome [37–85]Google Scholar
Diller 1952 Diller, Aubrey, The Tradition of the Minor Greek Geographers, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Donelha 1977 da Mota, A. Teixeira and Hair, P. E. H., eds., André Donelha, An Account of Sierra Leone and the Rivers of Guinea of Cape Verde (1625), LisbonGoogle Scholar
Falconer 1797 Falconer, Thomas, The Voyage of Hanno…Explained From the Accounts of Modern Travellers, LondonGoogle Scholar
Gelen 1533 Gelen, Sigismund, ed., Arriani et Hannonis periplus…, BaselGoogle Scholar
Germain 1957 Germain, G., “Qu'est-ce que le Périple d'Hannon? Document, amplification littéraire ou faux intégral?,” Hespéris, 44: 205–48Google Scholar
Gesner 1559 Gesner, Konrad, Hannonis Carthaginiensium ducis navigatio…é Greco sermone in Latinum…, ZurichGoogle Scholar
Gsell 1913 Gsell, Stéphane, Histoire ancienne de l'Afrique du nord, tome 1, Paris [472–523]Google Scholar
Hudson 1698 Hudson, John, Geographiae veteris scriptores graeci minores. Cum dissertationibus [by Dodwelll, Henry]…vol.1, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Jellicoe 1968 Jellicoe, S., The Septuagint and Modern Study, LondonGoogle Scholar
Kluge 1829 Wilhelm Kluge, Friedrich, Hannonis navigatio, LeipzigGoogle Scholar
Kwampong 1956 Kwampong, A.A., “Africa Antiqua,” Transactions of the Gold Coast and Togoland Historical Society, 2: 1–11Google Scholar
Law 1967 Law, R. C. C., “The Garamantes and Trans-Saharan Enterprise in Classical Times,” Journal of African History, 8: 181–200Google Scholar
Malte-Brun 1810 Malte-Brun, Conrad, Précis de la Géographie Universelle, tome premier, histoire de la géographie, Paris (pp. 71–6)Google Scholar
Mauny 1955 Mauny, Raymond, “La navigation sur les côtes du Sahara pendant l'Antiquité,” Revue des Etudes Anciennes, 57: 92–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montesquieu 1748 de Secondat, Charles, La Bréde, Baron de et Montesquieu, De l'Esprit des Lois, Geneva [liv. 21, ch. 11]Google Scholar
Müller 1855 Müller, Carl, Geographi graeci minores…, Volumen primum, and separate Tabulae, Paris (xviii-xxii, 1–14)Google Scholar
Palmer 1931 Palmer, H.R., The Carthaginian voyages to West Africa in 500 B.C. [and Mohammed Bello's account of the origins of the Fulbe], Bathurst [not in Diller]Google Scholar
Pédech 1964 Pédech, P., La méthode historique de Polybe, ParisGoogle Scholar
Picard 1961 Picard, G. and Picard, C., Daily Life in Carthage, LondonGoogle Scholar
Pliny 1980 Desanges, Jehan, ed., Pline l'Ancien: Histoire naturelle, livre 5, 1-46, pt.1, ParisGoogle Scholar
Purchas 1625 Purchas, Samuel, Purahas his Pilgrimes, London [1: 78–79, translation and commentary]Google Scholar
Ramin 1976 Ramin, J., The Periplus of Hanno, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Ramusio 1550 [Baptista Ramusio, Giovanni], Primo volume delle Navigationi et viaggi nel qual si contiene la desarittione dell'Africa, Venice [ff.121v-122, translation; ff.l22–124v, commentary]Google Scholar
Rennell 1800 Rennell, James, The Geographical System of Herodotus, London [719–45]Google Scholar
Reynolds and Wilson 1974 Reynolds, L.D. and Wilson, M.G., Scribes and Scholars: a Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature, 2nd. ed., LondonGoogle Scholar
Savage 1847 Savage, Thomas S., “Notice of the External Characteristics and Habits of Troglodytes Gorilla, a New Species of Orang From the Gaboon River,” Boston Journal of Natural History, 5: 417–26Google Scholar
Simonides 1864 Simonides, Constantin, The Periplus of Hannon, King of the Karchedonians…, London and LiverpoolGoogle Scholar
Warmington 1964 Warmington, B. H., Carthage, London, revision of 1960 original [pagination of Pelican edition]Google Scholar