Ancient Navigators Series
In yesterday's post, I mentioned Himilco's journey into the Atlantic from Carthage to NW Europe c.450 BC. Today I will mention a little known expedition undertaken by a Greek explorer and sailor, Eudoxus of Cyzicus
He is mentioned by Strabo (You can read the original text here) and by Pomponius (see this text with the full story). Strabo recounts his voyages to Asia, and from Gades in Spain to India, while Pomponius tells us he sailed the other way, from Egypt to Spain: "left the Arabian Gulf and passed through this sea, as Nepos affirms, he had sailed as far as Gades."
Strabo was a Greek geographer who the Romans knew as Strabon, and who lived between c.63 BS and 24 AD.
Strabo tells us he went from Greece to Egypt c. 170 BC, where he navigated to India under a commission of the pharoh Euergetes II. On a second voyage, sent by the pharoh's widow Cleopatra, he was shipwrecked "above Ethiopia" where he was rescued by the locals and found something that surprised him:
"the end of a prow, with a horse carved on it, which he was told formed part of the wreck of a vessel coming from the west, he took it with him, and proceeded on his homeward course. He arrived safely in Egypt [where] he carried the prow into the market-place, and exhibited it to the pilots, who recognised it as being come from Gades. The merchants [of that place] employing large vessels, but the lesser traders small ships, which they style horses, from the figures of that animal borne on the prow, and in which they go out fishing around Maurusia, as far as the Lixus. Some of the pilots professed to recognise the prow as that of a vessel which had sailed beyond the river Lixus, but had not returned."
Gades was the Roman name for modern Cadiz, a city on the southern tip of Spain's Atlantic coast, very close to the mouth of the Guadalquivir river. Maurusia is modern Mauritania, named by the Romans after the dark-skinned people of berber origin that lived there ('Maurus' in Lain is 'dark-skinned'). Lixus is a town settled by the Phoenicians in the 8th century BC and inhabited until c.1500 AD when the population moved to a fortified neighboring town. It is located by the modern Loukkos River close to Tangier in Morocco.
This convinced Eudoxus that he could set sail from Gades and circumnavigate Africa to reach Asia. So he went to Gades, equipped himself with a large ship and two smaller boats and set sail. The text states that "and launching into open sea, was carried towards India by steady westerly winds." And in a footnote the editor remarked that " Gosselin observes, that this steady westerly wind, so far from carrying him towards India, would be entirely adverse to him in coasting along Africa, and doubling Cape Bojador; and infers from hence that Eudoxus never really went that expedition, and that Strabo himself was ignorant of the true position of Africa.".
But... a westerly wind would have taken him across the Atlantic Ocean towards America!
The story continues: "However, they who accompanied him becoming wearied with the voyage, steered their course towards land..." So, they seem to have returned to Africa. The ship grounded due to navigating close to the coast. They built a smaller one from the shiprwreck, continued their journey met Ethiopian people, but turned around and returned without reaching India. On their way back they "On his voyage back he observed an uninhabited island, well watered and wooded, and carefully noted its position. Having reached Maurusia in safety."
Then he organized his final expedition with two large ships and farming equipment and seeds, to stop on the island and winter on his journey. He was never seen again because the text states that "“Thus far,” says Posidonius, “I have followed the history of Eudoxus. What happened afterwards is probably known to the people of Gades and Iberia;”". Did the westerly winds take him to America? Was the well watered and wooded Island America?
Strabo believes it is false, a fake story and explains all the incongruities in the story concluding that "All this too closely resembles the falsehoods of Pytheas, Euhemerus, and Antiphanes. They however may be pardoned; for their only aim was that of the juggler. But who can forgive a demonstrator and philosopher [Posidonius], and one too striving to be at the head of their order? it is really too bad!"
Pliny the Elder (a Roman scholar, naturalist, historian and geographer who lived between c.24 and 79 AD) also wrote about Eudoxus (see 167) in his accounts of voyages:
"Also when the power of Carthage flourished, Hanno sailed round from Gades to the extremity of Arabia and published a memoir of his voyage, as did Himilco when despatched at the same date to explore the outer coasts of Europe. Moreover we have it on the authority of Cornelius Nepos that a certain contemporary of his named Eudoxus when escaping from King Lathyrus emerged from the Arabian Gulf and sailed right round to Gades; and much before him Caelius Antipater states that he had seen someone who had gone on a trading voyage from Spain to Ethiopia. [170] Nepos also records as to the northern circuit that Quintus Metellus Celer, colleague of Afranius in the consulship {60 BC} but at the time proconsul of Gaul, received from the King of the Suebi a present of some Indians, who on a trade voyage had been carried off their course by storms to Germany."
Pliny states that Eudoxus sailed from Arabia to Gades (the opposite course to the one mentioned by Posidonius!). He mentions the previous voyage from Gades to Ethiopia and then, that in 60BC some Indians arrived on the coasts of Germany (where the Suebi lived). Could these "Indians" have been Amerindians?
The ancient texts provide very little information, but suggest that the ancients sailed and navigated into the Atlantic quite often.
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall ©
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