The Pillars

of
Hercules
in Aristotle’s Ecumene
by

Antonio Usai
 First part

The Pillars of Hercules in Aristotle’s Ecumene.

My name is Antonio Usai. I was born in Assemini in Sardinia on October 13, 1957.

I may appear monotonous, but I wish to express my opinion on the Pillars of Hercules and, more precisely,
on where the Pillars were first located. One day, after seeing Mario Tozzi's television program Gaia
dedicated to the legend of Atlantis which the journalist Sergio Frau, in his book entitled Le colonne d'Ercole:
un'inchiesta, identified with Sardinia, I bought the book, after reading it I bought other books on ancient
history (Herodotus, Aristotle, Polybius, Strabo and many others) to inquire into what Frau had written.
From them I realized that the Pillars of Hercules were quite different from the Straits of Gibraltar up to the
end of the 4th century BC. All the evidence points to the Canal of Sicily: Aristotle in his Meteorology owing
to its shallow waters, Dicaearchus owing to its distances and so on. A rather substantial ‘proof’ in Frau's
book comes from a passage describing the geography of the land taken from a book attributed to Aristotle,
which Frau entitles perì kosmos in which it is stated that those who enters the inland sea through the Pillars
of Hercules, first thing finds on their right the two Syrtes. Then however, Frau says immediately afterwards
that in this perì kosmos all is divided because of certain seas that Aristotle places beyond the Pillars but
which should not be there, not lastly because of the boundaries that Aristotle assigns to Libya. For Frau,
these reasons are sufficient to lead him to state that for Aristotle, the Pillars are no longer in the Channel of
Sicily but incontrovertibly at Gibraltar. Firstly I asked myself if Aristotle had contradicted himself by placing
the Pillars first in the Channel of Sicily and immediately afterwards at Gibraltar. I read several times what
Frau had written in his book about the perì kosmos and each time I arrived at the same conclusion: for
Aristotle the Pillars are at the Channel of Sicily. Then I purchased the Treatise On the Cosmos (the real title
of the perì kosmos) in Giovanni Reale’s Italian translation. I cannot recall how many times I have read
Aristotle's description of the Earth's geography, but each time I read it, it confirmed me once again that the
Pillars of Hercules are absolutely not at Gibraltar but at the Channel of Sicily in all the descriptions of the
geography. From this we can understand how Aristotle saw the world around him. Secondly, on the basis of
his descriptions I drew three maps which I enclose herein. To be certain of all this, I took the Greek version
of Aristotle's text to a professor of Latin and ancient Greek who most courteously translated it for me. The
entire description depends on a few simple words, six in Giovanni Reale's translation, seven in that of the
professor to whom I had taken the Greek text: "On the inside towards the west, travelling through a narrow
passage to the so-called Pillars of Hercules, the Ocean penetrates into the inland sea", (Giovanni Reale) " On
this side, instead, towards the west...." (the professor). These quite simple words, which everyone
overlooks, clearly and categorically state beyond all doubt that the Pillars of Hercules are not at Gibraltar:
how would it be possible to enter the Mediterranean travelling westwards? From Gibraltar one enters the
Mediterranean travelling eastwards. So where are the Pillars? Aristotle himself tells us: "On the inside
towards the west (towards the western side) travelling through a narrow passage to the so-called Pillars of
Hercules, the Ocean penetrates into the inland sea as if into a harbour and, slowly widening, it extends to
embrace large gulfs connected one to the other, now leading to narrow openings, now once again
widening. Now, first of all, it is said that on the right side of those who enter through the Pillars of Hercules
there are two gulfs which make up the so-called Syrtes, one of which is known as the Major and the other
as the Minor", in other words, the Channel of Sicily. For Frau, immediately afterwards there is a bifurcation;
instead "On the other side it does not form gulfs similar to these and forms instead three seas - the Sea of
Sardinia, the Sea of Gallia (Gaul) and the Adriatic Sea"!!?? What is the Adriatic doing here? It would
certainly appear that Aristotle made a mistake in placing it beyond the Pillars, but Aristotle, if we read
carefully, is not placing it beyond, just as he is not placing the other two seas either. Indeed, the text states:
"Now, first of all, it is said that on the right of those who enter (in the inland sea) through the Pillars of
Hercules..." shows us that in the inland sea (or in any case within the inhabited land) it is possible to enter
from another side and that is: “On the other side” (the side opposite the Pillars where we find the Gulf of
Gaul - see my map).

1/ Pillars of Hercules -2/ Syrte Minor- 3/ Syrte Major - 4/ Sea of Sardinia - 5/ Sea and Gulf of Gaul or Gallia -
6/ Adriatic Sea – 7/ Sea of Sicily – 8/ Sea of Crete – 9/ Sea of Egypt – 10/ Sea of Syria – 11/Sea of Panfilia –
12/ Mirto Sea – 13/Aegean Sea – 14/ Hellespont – 15/ Propontis – 16/ Euxine – 17/ Meotid Marsh -
18/Febol Island – 19 /Trapobane Island – 20/ 21/ Ireland and Albion (British Isles) – 22/ Arabian Isthmus –
23/ Persian Gulf – 24/ Indians Gulf – 25/ Hyrcanian Region – 26/ Caspian Region – 27/ Hyrcania

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Thus: "On the other side... it forms instead three seas, that is, the Sea of Sardinia, the Sea of Gaul and
(through the Strait of Messina) the Adriatic and, immediately after, situated obliquely, the Sea of Sicily..."
and all the rest. Now I shall speak of the seas on either sides of the Pillars. The sea before the Pillars is
called the inland sea and, as the name itself and Aristotle himself imply, it is a closed sea, while for the
author the sea beyond the Pillars is an open sea and we clearly understand this when he states: "The sea on
the outside of the inhabited land is called the Atlantic, or Ocean, and this is the sea all around us. On the
inside towards the west... the two Syrtes". This appears even more clearly when he states: "Subsequently,
just beyond the Scythians and the Celtic region it encloses the inhabitable land up to the Gulf of Gaul and
the Pillars of Hercules, which we mentioned above, beyond which the Ocean surrounds the land". This
means that for Aristotle Libya ends at the Pillars of Hercules of the Channel of Sicily, beyond which (and this
time truly towards the west, towards America) we do not find, at least in the position we know them today,
Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, but only the Atlantic Ocean which surrounds all and forms (towards the east)
the three seas and all the rest. So it is quite clear when he writes: "Libya is the region that extends from the
Arabic isthmus (or from the Nile) to the Pillars of Hercules". Aristotle mentions Iberia only once, and
certainly not as the location of the Pillars, but because around it and the British Isles, "there are small
islands that form a crown of islands around the inhabited land". All begins and ends in a world that is
entirely and exclusively Greek. And to finish let me add: "and there was an island in front of that mouth
which is called, as you say, the Pillars of Hercules" (Timaeus-Plato 5th/4th century BC). And so, beyond the
Pillars of Hercules in Aristotle’s Atlantic there is an island: my Sardinia.

First map produced

1 Pillars of Hercules-2 Syrte Minor- 3 Syrte Major- 4 Sea of Sardinia- 5 Sea and Gulf of Gaul- 6 Adriatic Sea- 7 Sea of
Sicily- 8 Sea of Crete- 9 Sea of Egypt- 10 Sea of Syria- 11 Seaof Panfilia- 12 Mirto Sea- 13 Aegean Sea-14 Hellespont- 15
Propontis-16 Euxine-17 Meotid Marsh-18 Tanais- 19 Sea of Hyrcania-20 Nyle- 21 Arabia-22 Arabian Isthmus-23 Inland
Sea- 24 Taprobane Island-25 Febol Island- 26 Indian Gulf- 27 Persian Gulf- 28 Albion and Ireland / British Isles-
Second part The first Pillars of Hercules of the ancients were here.

After locating the Pillars of Hercules in the Channel of Sicily, it was necessary to find the exact point in the
channel where they were, not only to clarify certain things but also for curiosity's sake. I tried to do this,
and for this reason I have needed two names: Hanno the Navigator (5th century BC) and Aristotle, as well
as some satellite photographs.

Before speaking of Hanno and his voyage beyond the Pillars of Hercules, I would like to add a small
premise: in the ancient texts I have read, those between the 6th century through to the end of the 4th
century BC, when they include the Pillars of Hercules, it appears that the authors lose their sense of
direction and fail to distinguish between east and west. This strange confusion can be explained by the fact
that the scholars start from the presupposition that the Pillars of Hercules were always at Gibraltar, even
though in many books, from the period cited above, the results are misleading if we investigate closely. And
this is the case of The Voyage of Hanno, the text of which is composed of eighteen passages. The first
contains the following sentences: "On the will of the Carthaginians, Hanno navigated beyond the Pillars of
Heracles and founded cities of Libyphoenices. He sailed together with sixty penteconters and a crowd of
men and women for a total of thirty thousand, and food and other supplies". Then Hanno's report follows
in the second passage: "Having set sail, we passed the Pillars of Hercules and we sailed in the external sea
for two days and we founded a first city which we named Thymiaterion: below this was a large plain". To
not appear too finicky, let us overlook the fact that if Hanno had sailed beyond Gibraltar he should have
said: "we sailed in the external sea towards the south for two days", unless he had founded that city in the
middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Making some simple calculations, knowing that in that period the voyage
from Carthage to Sardinia took about two days, Hanno could only have arrived, exaggerating, somewhere
near where Casablanca is located today. He then continued in the third passage: "Then set sail westward,
we reached Solòeis, a Libyan promontory thick with trees". Hanno's decision in the sentence "Then set sail
westward", which means "casted off the mooring ropes and gone out into the open sea towards the west",
is possible only on two conditions: the first is that this promontory he calls Soloeis is part of an island in the
Atlantic, but we can discard this because he says that this promontory is in the Libyan land. The second,
and only one possible, is that this promontory is located on the other headland of a fairly profound gulf,
one that is approximately at the same latitude as the headland from which he set sail going westward. Now
then, if we searched for a stretch of land with such a conformation along the coast from Gibraltar to
Liberia, we would not find it. In that part of Africa one inevitably travels southward.

This would be sufficient to discard the hypothesis of Hanno's voyage taking place in the Atlantic Ocean. But
to eliminate even the slightest doubts, we must find the real location. So let us continue our "voyage". Just
above I wrote a fairly profound gulf because one of the reasons why that gulf must have such
characteristics is that in my opinion this would justify Hanno's decision to set sail westward to avoid
coasting along the gulf or, perhaps he first wanted to visit the Soloeis promontory and then sail along the
coast of the gulf in the opposite direction. Indeed, in the following passages the text reads: 4th): "In that
place we raised a temple to Poseidon and then again we headed eastward for half a day until we reached
a lake near the sea" and goes on to give a short description of the flora and fauna of the place. Hanno
sailed back for half a day, and I suspect that on this voyage he did not go beyond the Soloeis promontory.
The 5th passage: "After passing the entire lake with a day's navigation, we founded some cities on the
coast to which we gave the names of Caricon-ticos, Gytte, Acra, Melitta and Arambys". When Hanno says
he had passed the lake, I had the clear sensation that the gulf began with that lake (on the side of the
Soloeis promontory), because Hanno does not specify in which direction he passed the lake and
furthermore, since to me it appeared strange that besides the "half a day towards the east" such a large
lake and all those cities founded along the coast should belong to that promontory. Then in the sixth
passage we find: "Then set sail from there we came to the great river Lixus" (where they became friendly
with the local inhabitants, the nomadic Lixitae, with whom they remained for some time). In this passage
Hanno sails once again without saying in which direction, but I clearly perceive that he went to the other
side of the gulf. In the seventh passage he says: "Above the Lixitae instead dwelt some inhospitable
Ethiopians who possessed a land full of ferocious beasts, intersected by large mountains..." and the
passage ends with a description of the inhabitants. But that “Above” is equivalent to “Behind”, and not to
"To the north of". This could be misleading (as it was for me at first, although this has no bearing on the
land I describe). For the ancients, the reference point was the sea; the people who inhabited the lands
behind the coasts were indicated as "above". A good example of this is Upper and Lower Egypt. Upper
Egypt was the southern part of Egypt while Lower Egypt was the northern part.

Let us now continue our voyage: as soon as I had read the seventh passage I had the feeling that Hanno
was sailing north, arriving almost certainly near the place from which he set sail westward. Then comes the
eighth passage in which suddenly everything falls into place, the misgivings, sensations and perceptions
that were accompanying me on this "voyage" took shape. Because in this eighth passage, which together
with the third is decisive in arriving at an understanding of Hanno's voyage beyond the Pillars of Hercules,
we find two key facts: 1) the final confirmation that the voyage does not take place in the Atlantic, and
consequently the Pillars of Hercules absolutely cannot be at Gibraltar; 2) it describes clearly and perfectly
the area in which the voyage takes place. The eighth passage reads: "Taken some interpreters from the
Lixitae, we coasted along the desert towards the south for two days; and, from that point, we proceeded,
for a day, towards the east. There we found, in the bottom of a gulf, a small island, with a perimeter of
five stadium, which we colonized, and called Cerne. And we supposed that this place lay, compared to the
circumnavigation (περίπλε in the Greek text), at the same latitude as Carthage; indeed the voyage from
Carthage to the Pillars seemed to be equal to that from the Pillars to Cerne". This sentence in boldface is
the decisive confirmation that the voyage does not take place in the Atlantic since if Cerne is approximately
at the same latitude as Carthage and more or less at the same distance from the Pillars as Carthage, then
the above-mentioned island should be located in the middle of the Atlantic, almost halfway between Africa
and America; but that island would be towards the west instead of towards the east. And if we place Cerne
before passing Gibraltar so that it is towards the east (that is, in the western Mediterranean) the distances
would be impossible. Thus, no voyages on the Atlantic and no pillars at Gibraltar. Hanno's entire voyage
takes place between the promontory of Sidi Ali El Mekki (northwest of the large gulf of Tunis), the Channel
of Sicily and the area of the two Syrtes. Hanno certainly sails from Carthage, passes the Pillars, enters the
inland Greek sea, which for the Carthaginians is the external sea and, instead of continuing his voyage in
that sea, he retraces his route. We can deduce this from two facts: we understand that he is sailing from
south to north (even though he says he sailed on the external sea), because after founding the first city he
sets sail westwards; if he had sailed from north to south this would not have been possible; also because of
the sequence of events that follows. Therefore, Hanno turns back and, in passage 2, arrives at the Hermeo
promontory (Cape Bon), founds a first city (near El Haouaria?); and, passage 3, sets sail going westward and
arrives at the Soloeis promontory, which is nothing more than the promontory of Sidi Ali El Mekki. Passage
4: here he erects a temple and then retraces his steps for half a day, reaching the lake that is just below
that promontory and near the sea, as the passage states. Passage 5: as I suspected, from this lake begins
the descent and exploration of the gulf towards the south: he leaves the lake behind and founds five cities.
Then, in passage 6, he crosses the gulf, arrives at the river Lixus (but in that area there are three rivers and,
not knowing which is the Lixus, I took as my reference the first from the south so as not to discard one for
no reason), and strikes up a friendship with the Lixitae, with whom he remains for a certain time.
Afterwards, in passage 7, he visits places inhabited by the inhospitable Ethiopians and we understand that
these places, together with those of the Lixitae, border on the place from which he set sail towards the
west, since in the next passage (the decisive number 8), he says that he coasts along the desert for two
days southwards, accompanied by Lixitae interpreters. That desert (or deserted coast as G.B. Ramusio
wrote in his work in 1550) is located immediately after Cape Bon, looking in the Channel of Sicily. Then,
from an unspecified point of the desert, Hanno sails eastward and reaches the island of Cerne, which is
Pantelleria (Kossura for the Greeks) at the bottom of a gulf. With respect to the circumnavigation (of the
circumnavigation of the long peninsula that terminates with Cape Bon), this is precisely at the same
latitude as Carthage, as it appears to Hanno. And the distance from that point of the desert, where Hanno
turns towards Cerne, at the Pillars, is the same as the distance from the Pillars at that point, either sailing
straight on to Carthage or changing back towards Cerne. And the distance from Cerne at that point is
approximately the same, hour more hour less of sailing time, from that point to Carthage. Indeed Hanno
does not say that it is the same, but that: “The voyage from Carthage to the Pillars, seemed to be equal to
that from the Pillars to Cerne". Not knowing exactly from which point of the desert Hanno sailed for Cerne,
I drew two points with two routes, one halfway along the desert and the other at the end of the desert.
Instead, as concerns the supposed five-stadia circumference of Cerne, the editor of the volume that speaks
of Hanno's voyage, Federica Cordano, says that it may have been fifteen stadia because at that point the
book is damaged; and it is for this very reason (the damaged text) that we can say that any circumference
could have been written. Then, in the following passages, Hanno sails on for about thirty days, visiting
places with very high mountains, lakes and savages from whom he escapes as an intruder. He returns to
Cerne, then sets out sailing southward for several days (twelve) and arrives in places where at night he
could see fires being lit. He reaches a large gulf called the Western Horn where he found an island within an
island; he sees what is presumed to be a volcano known as the Chariot of the Gods and reaches an island,
captures three hairy women whom the Lixitae called gorillas, has them killed and skinned and then returns
to Carthage because for lack of provisions he can go no farther. This is the voyage of Hanno, King of the
Carthaginians, beyond the Pillars of Hercules; on the next map is the result of this first part.

A: Carthage / Departure- P.2°/3°: founded first city and set sail westward and landed in the Solòeis
promontory – P. 4°: lake close to the sea – P. 5°: founded five cities – P. 6°: Lixitae- P. 7°: inhospitable
Ethiopians – P. 8°: desert, gulf- I: point of the desert towards the east, colonization of Cerne - C: Cerne,
Kossura, Pantelleria - B: long peninsula that ends with Cape Bon – P. dal 9° al 18°: passages from 9th to 18 th

What I have described thus far is my summary of Hanno's voyage only up to and including that most
important eighth passage, because now my attention turns, so as to ensure that his voyage is complete and
also for curiosity, to the search for those legendary first Pillars of Hercules, between which the ancient
navigators were forced to pass, because in those days navigators followed the coastlines. The search for
the Pillars now needs Aristotle’s help, and more precisely a passage taken from his Treatise on the Cosmos,
but this time, not in Giovanni Reale's translation, but in that of the professor to whom I had taken it only in
the Greek version, that is, Aristotle's text. I have taken the passage from the professor's translation since
she has made a translation that is more literal than Reale’s, and a literal translation has a wealth of detail
that may be more or less important depending on what a person is searching for. The text reads: "First of
all, then, it is said that curves doubly to the right of those who enter sailing through the Pillars of
Hercules towards the so-called Syrtes, one called the Major and the other the Minor" (Πρῶτον μὲν οὖν
λέγεται ἐγκεκολπῶσθαι ἐν δεξιᾷ εἰσπλέοντι τὰς ῾Ηρακλείους στήλας‚ διχῶς‚ εἰς τὰς καλουμένας Σύρτεις‚).
In the part in boldface there is a most important clue, without which I would have failed in my search. So I
searched along the African coast of the Channel of Sicily for a part with a double curve, like a road hump,
which is before the Syrte Minor and where nearby there is a shallow muddy sea, as Aristotle says in the
Meteorology: "The sea beyond the Pillars is shallow owing to the mud,.." I searched for the Pillars using
these clues and, as if by magic, here they were before my eyes in all their ancient millenary familiarity. They
seem to look at you and say: “Come, be not afraid, pass through us and we shall tell you the tale of an
island which thousands of years ago was before our eyes and in which there was all that a man could
desire, but which has been moved and forgotten, as we have been even before.”
This is my location of the first Pillars of Hercules of the ancients, following their directions.
Part Three Notes to: The first Pillars of Hercules of the ancients were here.

These notes refer to Hanno to explain what induced him, in my opinion, to undertake the part of his voyage
described in passages from two to eight, in places that a Carthaginian like him should have known well. This
is a question that would be asked especially by those people who will never accept that Hanno went to the
places that I have indicated, which are the only correct ones. But it is still a legitimate question. Some will
also wonder why I did not include this explanation directly in my description of the voyage. I shall first reply
to the latter question: I thought it would be more difficult for readers to accept (not due to lack of
knowledge) all these things together. I first had to demonstrate to them that Hanno made the part of the
voyage cited above to the places I have indicated and then explain the reason for it, which I shall begin to
do below. I shall also speak of the rest of the voyage in two parts, the first from the first to the eighth
passages and the second from the ninth to the eighteenth passages. What induced Hanno to visit those
places is simple and humanly understandable and it can be seen throughout the entire narrative: Hanno
had no intention at all of undertaking that voyage, which the Carthaginians had ordered him to do. The
first passage states: “On the will of the Carthaginians (not on his initiative), Hanno navigated beyond the
Pillars of Heracles and founded cities of Libyphoenices. He sailed together with sixty penteconters and a
crowd of men and women for a total of thirty thousand, and food and other supplies". Thus Hanno sets
sail and travels to places he knows quite well, but he never provides clear indications of them. He
mentions with different names both the places he founded and to which he had already given a name as
well as those which he colonized or visited and already had a name of their own. He changes them so that
those who ordered him to undertake that voyage would not understand where he actually went. Some may
object that there are thirty thousand people who could testify against him, but this is improbable since that
crowd of men and women are common people who surely had never ventured anywhere beyond the walls
of their own homes; and most of all, them too, like all the members of the crew (undoubtedly faithful to
Hanno) are obliged to undertake that voyage. Hanno arrives at Cape Ermeo (which he does not name)
where in the second passage he says: “ we founded a first city which we named Thymiaterion…”. And
naturally to found that city he disembarked many people. Thymiaterion is one of the names changed by
Hanno (up to now no scholar has located it). What does Hanno do now? Instead of immediately coasting
the gulf, to avoid this he cunningly sets sail, in the third passage: “ westward we reached Solòeis, a Libyan
promontory thick with trees". A promontory with that name has never existed: it is another name changed
by Hanno to mislead (Soloeis too is a place unknown to scholars). Then in the fourth passage he turns back
just long enough to reach a lake which, in the fifth passage, he passes (here he is going down towards the
gulf with the risk of being seen, but he must run this risk), and surely founds the five cities close to the lake
and to each other, they too with names different from those actually given and which even today nobody is
able to find. In photos 1 and 3 of my essay I had the navigator set sail from the promontory below which is
Carthage instead of from near the lake under the Soloeis promontory. If I had not done it in this way, I
would have had to justify straight away this decision. And I did not think it was a good idea to lump too
many things together. It would have been too dispersive. In the sixth passage, Hanno sets sail after
founding the five cities, where he leaves almost all the people he had aboard his ships and reaches, now
with few ships and therefore with much less risk of being discovered, the river Lixus (another name
changed) which however is not, as I state in my essay (because I would immediately have to justify this as
well), the first from the south, but undoubtedly the first from the north and closer to the place from which
he set sail in the direction of Soloeis. Near this river live the Lixitae, a name that reappears, as the editor
Federica Cordano says, only six hundred and fifty years later with Pausania, who identifies the Lixitae with
the Nasamones, a population of the Syrte Major. But the Syrte Major is not in the Atlantic. In the seventh
passage, the inhospitable Ethiopians lived above the Lixitae. In the decisive eighth passage Hanno coasts
southwards along the desert facing the Channel of Sicily and still from an unspecified point of the desert he
sails away towards the east and reaches the island he colonizes and to which, he says, gives the name of
Cerne (another name changed and which no scholar up to now has ever located), but which he knows to be
Kossura; but if he had called it by that name the Carthaginians would have understood. He rightly supposes
that this island is situated, with respect to the circumnavigation (but he is careful not to say which place he
has circumnavigated), on the same latitude as Carthage. Indeed: "the voyage from Carthage to the Pillars
seemed to be equal (and more or less it is) to that from the Pillars to Cerne”. And that island is at the
bottom of a gulf. He also says that the island measures five stadia; but how could he call small an island and
even colonize a piece of land of two hundred and fifty meters on each side (1 stadium equals 200 meters
maximum)? Or, as Cordano says, fifteen stadia (not even one square kilometer and also a one-day sail from
the mainland)? To colonize means to take possession of places already occupied. Let us go on: at Cerne
the astute Hanno disembarks the rest of the people aboard (except for his faithful crew). We can see this
from the second part of the voyage, which goes from the ninth to the eighteenth passages. He founds no
cities but continues his voyage for another thirty days before returning to Carthage (more days to add to
the thirty days already cited). In my essay I say that this second part is not as detailed as the first because
my attention had turned to the search for the Pillars. However, this is not the only reason: the other reason
is that in this second part Hanno makes up everything because he does not want to continue that voyage.
In fact, he makes up fantastic and terrifying places (so that no one will be foolish enough to want to search
for them).

He reaches (ninth passage) a place where there is a lake, in which there are three islands larger than Cerne.
But there are also: "large mountains, inhabited by savage men, clothed in skins of wild beasts, who drove
us away by throwing stones, and hindered us from disembark".

In the tenth passage they escape from a river "large and broad, and full of crocodiles and hippopotamus"
and then returns to Cerne.

In the eleventh, he sails for twelve days southwards, where he arrives in places in which the inhabitants:
"would not wait our approach, but fled from us. Their language was unintelligible even to the Lixitae,
who were with us".

In the twelfth and thirteenth passages he arrives where there were high mountains and sweet-scented
woodlands: "Circumnavigating these mountains for two days, we found ourselves in the immensity of the
open sea; and in front of it, on the land there was a plain; from which we saw at night fires being lit in all
directions at intervals, now bright, now less so ".

In the fourteenth passage he continues along the coast for five days and arrives in a large gulf called the
Western Horn (never located) inside which: " there was a large island, and on the island a salt water lake,
and in this, another island”. He concludes by saying: “At night we saw many fires burning, and heard the
sound of pipes and cymbals, a rolling of drums and a great clamor. We became afraid, and our diviners
urged us to abandon the island".

In the fifteenth passage they quickly pass a country in flames “full of vapors from which large torrents of
fire descended towards the sea. The land was inaccessible, on account of the heat".
In the sixteenth passage he escapes from there in terror and after four days comes to a country bright with
flames at the center of which there is what is presumably a volcano known as the Chariot of the Gods”.

In the seventeenth passage Hanno, after leaving behind the streams of fire with a three-day sail, reaches a
gulf called the Horn of Noto (another place never found). And finally we arrive at the eighteenth passage,
the last one and the one in which in this second part Hanno has a stroke of genius. At the bottom of the
“Gulf of Noto” there is an island full of savage people: "But far more numerous were the women, hairy all
over the body, whom our interpreters called Gorillae. We chased the men but it was impossible to capture
them because they all fled, climbing up the slopes and defending themselves with stones . Instead, three
women, biting and scratching their captors, refused to follow them; then having killed them, we skinned
them and carried their pelts to Carthage. Indeed, we could sail no farther, since we had finished our
provisions". In this passage we see all of Hanno's cunning; when he decides that it is time to return to
Carthage, he captures three hairy women, but instead of taking them alive before the Carthaginian
senate as proof of their existence, he has them killed and flayed with the excuse that they had refused to
follow his men. But Hanno does not flay three women, but actually three apes; and in flaying them it was
necessary to remove the head, hands and feet (and the tail, if there was any), which would be proof that
they were apes. And voilà the trick is done. Hanno cannot return with what he calls hairy women while
still alive because the Carthaginian senators would immediately see that they were apes and would
surely have him punished severely.

In my opinion, these are the reasons of this Hanno's strange voyage beyond the Pillars of Hercules. And
even if it were all an invention, in the first part we undoubtedly find the description of the places that I
indicate in my essay. I finish by saying that some of the places of which Hanno changed the name, such as
Thymiaterion, Acra, Soloeis and Cerne, are found in a presumed circumnavigation by Scylax of Caryanda,
6th century BC (still in the book edited by Federica Cordano Antichi viaggi per mare), but which prove
beyond all doubt that this circumnavigation was not performed by anyone in the 6th century BC. In fact,
these places are mentioned at a time when they had not yet been founded, colonized or visited by Hanno
(5th century BC).

P.S: taken from Plinio (1th century A.D.) Storia Naturale:

“There were some note of the voyage that the Carthaginian navigator Hanno left, whom in the period of
the maximum magnificence of the Carthaginian power, had the duty to circumnavigate Africa. Most of the
Greek and Roman writers, based on the information given by Hanno, narrated among other fables, that he
would have founded here (he is talking about the Atlantic coast of Africa) also many cities of which,
however, there remains no trace or recollection.”

Part Four Hanno and the hoax of the strait

It sometimes happens that after reaching the destination of your journey you look around and feel that you
could have arrived by taking an easier route, but that someone had hidden or concealed it from you to
make you take another more tortuous one and, if narrated, to border on the incredible. This is what
happened to me while rereading paragraph 43 of the fourth volume of Herodotus's Histories.

But before starting with that paragraph, I shall speak of an evidence I did not discuss in my account of
Hanno's voyage, since inevitably it will be necessary to speak about it later on and also give the reason for
not speaking about it before. This evidence is found on reading that decisive eighth passage.

That decisive passage, while it shows clearly and precisely where the first part of the voyage takes place,
and undoubtedly to the places I indicate in my essay, it also shows that with the sentence: " And we
supposed that this place (Cerne) lay, compared to the circumnavigaton, at the same latitude as Carthage;
indeed the voyage from Carthage to the Pillars seemed to be equal to that from the Pillars to Cerne",
even the Carthaginians would certainly have understood which place Hanno was speaking of. The reason
why I did not speak about it was because from my viewpoint there was no reason to speak about it. Let me
explain: I had started from the fact that there were two possibilities:

either Hanno did not exist and therefore that voyage was nothing more than a tale created by the fantasy
of a storyteller (but even in this case the first part of the voyage was undoubtedly to the places that I
indicated), or Hanno existed and had sailed beyond the Pillars of Hercules (and thus if done, that first part
of the voyage would have been, as stated above, undoubtedly to the places I indicated in my essay).

As can be seen from my essay, I chose the second possibility. But why did Herodotus in paragraph 43 use a
name that Hanno was the first to mention, Soloeis, which proved that the voyage had taken place. And
since the voyage had taken place, this meant that beyond all doubt Hanno had not been exposed, and this
meant that he had certainly found a way to succeed in it. But also given that at the time I wrote my essay I
had not yet understood how Hanno had succeeded, I repeat, there was no reason to speak of that
evidence. I do not know if I was right or wrong in not speaking about it, but in any case this is the reason.

Having said this, let us now begin the search by citing paragraph forty-three of Book IV of Herodotus's
Histories.

There, the historian relates a story that the Carthaginians tell about a Persian named Sataspes who, to
avoid being impaled because he had raped a virgin, had to circumnavigate Libya (the name for Africa at that
time) but, not having completed the voyage he suffered the punishment. But there is a point at which the
paragraph states: "...Sataspes sailed towards the Pillars of Hercules. Once past them and having rounded
the Libyan promontory called Solunte (but in the Greek version the name is Soloeis ), he headed towards
the south." This passage in boldface shows that a promontory named Soloeis, besides being unknown to
the Carthaginians, as we understand from Hanno when in passage three he says: "... we reached Solòeis, a
Libyan promontory thick with trees": and not "we reached the Soloeis promontory" (if the Carthaginians
had known this promontory they would also have known that it was Libyan), has never existed (as I wrote
in my essay): it was invented by the Carthaginian navigator. What leads me to affirm this is the fact that
after passing through the Strait of Gibraltar (if the voyage had been on the Atlantic), and taking as truthful
that Hanno coasted along Africa towards the south, although he does not say this when, in the second
passage he writes: "we sailed in the external sea for two days", and even if we overlook the fact that the
Soloeis promontory is or is not on the other headland of a fairly profound gulf, this promontory would be
to the west of a city (Thymiaterius) which was founded after sailing towards the south more or less for two
days. While in Herodotus (quoted in boldface above), the Carthaginians clearly lead up to understand that
the direction is southwards only after Soloeis. If instead we do not overlook that unwritten “towards the
south”, we would not know where to search for Soloeis. Indeed, after sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar,
Hanno supposedly would have sailed on the external sea for two days, founded Thymiaterius and reached
Soloeis, proceeding from east to west. But Hanno would have sailed from east to west only if he had not
said, in the third passage: "Then set sail westward". In fact Hanno, since, as he says in the third passage,
reaches Soloeis setting sail towards the west, with that sentence he tells us that before sailing towards that
promontory he had not sailed from east to west, but from a different direction, from north to south or vice
versa. And we can also understand this in the version in the Tuscan dialect by G. B. Ramusio: "Then, turning
toward the west, we reached an African promontory named Soloente…”. Thus, since Hanno was not sailing
from east towards the west, we would not understand where he founded Thymiaterium and consequently
not even where Soloeis was, since it is after founding that city that the navigator set sail towards that
promontory. So we can say that a promontory named Soloeis is to be found only in the mind of the
Carthaginian navigator.

But the passage in Herodotus poses, also, an important question: even leaving aside the fact that a
promontory named Soloeis existed or not, why do the Carthaginians place that promontory beyond the
Strait of Gibraltar? If Hanno had to sail beyond the Pillars of Hercules, the Carthaginians should have
indicated that promontory in some part of Africa washed by the Greek inland sea. If instead they had
discovered where Hanno had actually gone, Soloeis would obviously have been the promontory of Sidi Ali El
Mekki (Cape Farina). So how is this possible? Those who oppose my theory will say that the answer is
evident: the Pillars of Hercules were, even in Hanno's times, at the Strait of Gibraltar. But as we shall see,
the Pillars of Hercules are there at Gibraltar because of a conviction widespread among the Greeks and
people of Greek culture, born out of the belief, still by the Greeks, to consider that beyond the Pillars of
Hercules there was the external sea: if beyond a strait there is the external sea, that is the strait of the
Pillars of Hercules. And this conviction is suggested, just, by Hanno's voyage. What was written in the
original Punic text about that voyage (of which only the Greek translation has arrived to us), “Pillars of
Hercules”? or something else? If we hypothesize that, as I believe, there was written “strait” instead of
“Pillars of Hercules”, everything would be clearer. When the Greek translator of Hanno's text comes across
the term “strait” time and time again, on the strength of the aforementioned conviction he translates it as
the “Pillars of Hercules”. But every time he translates it only as “Pillars of Hercules” or “Pillars”. Does he
do this to shorten a sentence, that is, to avoid having to write, for instance, every time the term appears:
"so and so went beyond the strait of the Pillars of Hercules", and in this way transforming, for
convenience, the term “strait” as a synonym of “Pillars of Hercules”. And with such a translation we
discover that Hanno had been ordered to sail not beyond the Pillars of Hercules, where for centuries the
Greek text has directed us, but beyond a strait, beyond that of Gibraltar. The first passage of the voyage is
an introduction, not by Hanno, but by the Greek translator and so that first: "Hanno navigated beyond the
Pillars of Heracles", is the consequence of the two translations of the term “strait” as “Pillars of Hercules”
and “Pillars”, which are found in the second and in the decisive eighth passages respectively (but even if
Hanno had written the introduction himself the result would be the same: “strait” translated as “Pillars of
Heracles”). If, as I believe, in the second passage of the original text there was written: "Having set sail, we
passed the strait and we sailed in the external sea for two days…” instead of: "Having set sail, we passed
the Pillars of Hercules and we sailed in the external sea…” it is no longer so strange that the Carthaginians
in the passage from Herodotus cited above placed Soloeis beyond the Strait of Gibraltar. Let us now go to
the decisive eighth passage in which we find the evidence I spoke of at the beginning of the essay and of
which I have not discussed yet and whether I was right or wrong in not doing so, in any case we must speak
about it now. Because it is in that evidence that we find proof of the translation discussed above. Indeed,
only if Hanno had written“pillars” would he certainly have led the Carthaginian senators to understand, as I
stated above, what places he was speaking about; they would certainly have understood that besides not
going where he was ordered to go, that is beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, Hanno had traveled, even, to
places well known to the Carthaginians. For this reason, in the eighth passage Hanno would never have
been able to write “pillars”. Instead, he wrote, astutely and only, the word “strait”. He wrote astutely and
only the word “strait”, because in this way the Carthaginians would have understood the “ strait” that put
them in contact with the external sea, that is, the Strait of Gibraltar, and consequently they would not have
understood that he was referring to another “strait”, that of the “Pillars of Hercules” (the Pillars of
Hercules are in fact at a strait). At the same time, in this way it also comes to light that it is still due to the
fact that he wrote astutely and used only the term “strait” that Hanno succeeded in not being found out.
And so the translator, on finding himself for the second time faced with the term “ strait”, translates it as
“pillars”, without being aware that Hanno actually referred to the strait of the “Pillars of Hercules”, thus
transforming a masterpiece of fiction into an ingenuous self-accusation. The original text surely read as
follows: "Taken some interpreters from the Lixitae, we coasted along the desert towards the south two
days; and from thatpoint, we proceeded, for a day, towards the east. There we found, in the bottom of a
gulf, a small island, with a perimeter of five stadium, which we colonized, and called Cerne. And we
supposed that this place lay, compared to the circumnavigation (here as I said previously, he is careful not
to say which circumnavigation he is referring to), at the same latitude as Carthage; indeed the voyage
from Carthage to the strait seemed to be equal to that from the strait to Cerne". In this way everything
tallies, even for the Carthaginians, convinced that Soloeis, Cerne and all the other places are beyond the
Strait of Gibraltar.

Everything said up to now leads us to believe that if in the ancient Greek books that speak of events before
the second century BC they refer to Carthaginians and the Pillars of Hercules together, as in the case of
Hanno and the paragraph from Herodotus above, we should read them differently from how they are
written.

But another question arises, as spontaneously as inevitably, on reading the record of Hanno's voyage, to
which we must reply: why did Hanno go to those very places? Why just there, instead of making up places
as he did, for example, in the second part? Why there? And the answer is one only: to hoax those who
ordered him to undertake that voyage, which he had no intention at all of accomplishing (for reasons that
unfortunately we will never know). And the “hoaxing” also shows that the navigator limited himself only to
describing the places and not going personally to the places he speaks about in the first part of the voyage
since the chances of being seen and thus found out were many.

But that voyage must finally come to an end, and what there is better than concluding it with a stroke of
genius? What does Hanno do in the second part? Firstly he cleverly describes fantastic and terrifying places.
But, he describes them, not so that no one will be foolish enough to want to search for them, as I wrote in
my essay, but so as to avoid the senators’ recognizing them in some way in the descriptions. He then ends
that voyage beyond “the strait” as a true king of hoaxers, as he shows himself to be by tricking the
Carthaginian senators into believing that the three skins of apes which brings from them from voyage, were
those of: “women, hairy all over the body, whom our interpreters called Gorillae”.

As concerns the cities that Hanno founded, including Thymiaterius, and those thousands of people who
sailed with him, we can certainly say that if the Carthaginian navigator had founded these cities, he could
have done so only in the area between Cape Bianco and the Strait of Gibraltar, but as I said in my essay, he
gave a different name from the one he said he had given (so that the Carthaginians would not be able to
find them), and consequently the thousands of people disembarked there. But if he had not founded those
cities, he certainly disembarked those thousands of people in that part of Africa.
However, the Carthaginians, in positioning Soloeis beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, raise a doubt: did they not
realize that Hanno had not gone beyond the strait of Gibraltar? Or was there something else in play? What
led me to suspect something is the fact that in my opinion the Carthaginians placed Soloeis in a too well-
defined position, as if they wished to make known that they knew where that promontory was. But as we
have seen, it is impossible to find it. If my suspicion is correct, the events took place almost surely in the
following way: starting once again from the idea that there were two possibilities:

either the Carthaginians were gullible, or Hanno had been caught; but he had been caught too late to put it
right.

Here too I opted for the second case and I did so because it is fairly plausible. And what comes to light, as
we shall see, is an even greater hoax, one that is almost beyond all imagination.

Let us continue, but briefly we must go back to the beginning.

Hanno, even if he had had no intention at all of undertaking that voyage, would have had to set sail in any
case to avoid a severe punishment. He set sail but did not go in the direction he was supposed to: he stayed
between Cape Bianco and the Strait of Gibraltar. He knew that for sure he would have been exposed
because sooner or later the Carthaginian senators would send 'inspectors' beyond Gibraltar to check up on
his voyage and so he devised the hoax. He knew that he would have certainly been exposed, but he also
knew that if he returned to Carthage without having been discovered he would receive honors and glory
because he had 'satisfied' the imperialistic aims of the Carthaginian Senate. In fact, that voyage was
ordered, as Pliny says: "in the period of the maximum splendor of Carthage's power". And this is what took
place (Hanno's report was engraved on slabs or columns in the sanctuary of Baal and, as Pliny says, two
skins of “ hairy women all over the body” remained on display in the temple of Juno at Carthage until the
city was conquered by the Romans). When the Carthaginian senators sent the 'inspectors' beyond the
Strait of Gibraltar and discovered first that nothing corresponded to what Hanno had reported on his
return, and after, certainly examining the skins of the hairy women discovered that they were instead the
pelts of apes (they remained on display in the temple of Juno until the city was conquered by the Romans,
two skins of hairy women instead of three), it was too late to right the situation, reveal his treachery
'officially' and put him to death. And so, forced against their will to do so, they positioned the Soloeis
promontory in a place beyond the Strait of Gibraltar to 'demonstrate' that the voyage took place and, with
a grimace, bore the shame because if they had 'officially' said that they had discovered what Hanno did to
them, which was even their fellow citizen, all the Carthaginians, and perhaps not only them, would have
made them laughing stocks. And Hanno knew this. This is why his was an even better hoax, almost beyond
all imagination. The Carthaginian senators, in one way or another, would surely make Hanno pay, not
officially, for the affront they had suffered; but the navigator certainly knew this as well. But whatever
happened to him, the navigator has dealt with it with a satisfaction that I believe was beyond comparison
and also with the almost certainty that sooner or later someone would understand what actually took
place.

In any case, whether my suspicion is founded or not, Hanno succeeded in carrying out the hoax.

Fifth
 If beyond a strait there is the external sea...

For some time now, and I am not the first to say so, it is believed that if Atlantis existed it was in the
Atlantic Ocean because in the Timaeus we find that this power (Atlantis) came from the outside, from the
Atlantic Ocean (but in the Greek text we find “Atlantikou pelagous” which is translated as "Atlantic Sea")
and that the island is located in front of the Pillars of Hercules, which are said to be at the Strait of
Gibraltar.

But as I believe I have shown in one of my previous essays, before the end of the 4th century BC the Pillars
of Hercules were between Tunisia and the Kerkennah Islands. Therefore, prior to the end of the 4th century
BC for the Greeks the external sea, called the Atlantic, began after the present-day strait formed by Tunisia
and the Kerkennah Islands.

Therefore, it is natural to think that on considering its position with respect to that older Pillars of Hercules
and to the fact that it is in a sea surrounded by a continent (Europe), Sardinia may have been Atlantis, as
advanced by Sergio Frau's theory that Sardinia was Atlantis and that the Pillars of Hercules were at Malta in
the Channel of Sicily.

But also due to its position with respect to that older Pillars of Hercules and to the fact that it is in a sea
surrounded by a continent, Sardinia could not have been Atlantis and I must say that there was a time
when I too thought it was.

In the Timaeus, the priest of Sais says to Solon: " indeed, our texts say that your city (Athens) once put an
end to a mighty power that advanced arrogantly over the whole of Europe and Asia together, which came
from the outside, from the Atlantic Ocean. In those days that faraway sea was navigable, since there was
an island in front of the strait that you call, as you said, the Pillars of Heracles, and this island was larger
than Libya and Asia together, and from it navigators at that time could go on to the other islands, and from
them to the entire continent which was in front and which surrounds that sea which is the true sea. Indeed,
all that is found inside the strait we are speaking of seems to be a harbour with a narrow entrance; while on
the other side of the strait is truly a sea, and the land that surrounds it can be called in all truth and in the
most appropriate way a continent. On this island Atlantis there was a great and extraordinary royal power,
which dominated the entire island and many other islands and parts of the continent; moreover, within the
strait it also dominated Libya as far as Egypt, and Europe, as far as Tyrrhenia.”

As we can see, on describing to Solon (638-558 BC) the places in which the story of Atlantis is set, the
Egyptian priest mentions two places that are quite distinct and are situated in two different places. One is
the continent surrounding the sea in which there is Atlantis. The other is Europe, which was invaded
arrogantly by the men of Atlantis.

Consequently, Europe could not be the continent surrounding the sea in which Atlantis is located.
Furthermore, beyond the strait, that great power, Atlantis, dominated its entire island and a part of the
continent that surrounded the sea in which it was located. Whereas, on this side of the strait it had also
subjected Europe, as far as Tyrrhenia.

Therefore, Europe, as far as Tyrrhenia, being on this side of the strait, which in Frau’s theory was the strait
of the Pillars of Hercules, which still for Frau, was at Malta in the Channel of Sicily, should be in the part of
Europe facing the eastern Mediterranean. But it would not have been possible to find it in the latter, since
no part of it was or had ever been subdued by Atlantis. Indeed the Egyptian priest says: "This vast power,
gathered into one, endeavoured to subdue your country (Greece), our country (Egypt) and the whole of
the region within the straits. And then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of Its virtue and
strength, ...after having faced the most extreme dangers, defeated and triumphed over the invaders".

So Europe, as far as Tyrrhenia, was that part of Europe facing the western Mediterranean; that is to say, it
was the part that from Spain, included, arrives as far as Tuscany, which in the theory that Sardinia was
Atlantis was the part of the continent that surrounded the sea in which Atlantis was located.

But the part that from Spain, included, arrives as far as Tuscany could not have been the part of the
continent that surrounded the sea in which Atlantis was located, since it was a part of Europe and not of
the continent.

And since the continent and Europe were two distinct entities situated in two different places and it was
the continent that surrounded the sea in which Atlantis was located and not Europe, the part which from
Spain, included, reached as far as Tuscany, which is to say Europe, as far as Tyrrhenia, consequently could
not be the part of the continent that surrounded the sea in which Atlantis was located, as in the theory that
Sardinia was Atlantis.

Consequently, Sardinia could not have been that legendary island that was located in the sea surrounded
by the continent. And for the same reasons Atlantis could not have been any other island in the western
Mediterranean.

Sardinia, as well as the other islands, then as now, was in the sea surrounded by Europe.

We must not forget that starting from the 8th century BC the Greeks began colonizing southern Italy,
founding in 770 BC Pithecusa (Ischia), then Kymai (Cuma) and many other cities; in the 7th century BC the
Greeks from Phocaea sailed beyond the Strait of Gibraltar and conquered or colonized Massalia
(Marseilles), founded by the Phoenicians in the 10th century BC, which, as we can gather from Herodotus,
was part of the Iberia that the historian placed immediately after the Tyrrhenia.

Herodotus, indeed, says: “these Phocaeans were the first Greeks to make long sea voyages and they were
the ones who discovered the Adriatic Gulf, Tyrrhenia, Iberia and Tartessos”.

If there was another region between Tyrrhenia and Iberia it is impossible to think that the historian would
not have mentioned it as another of the Phocaeans' discoveries.

Therefore Iberia is not to be thought of as it is described from the second century BC onward.

Furthermore, Herodotus, like Aristotle in his Treatise On the Cosmos, indicates that the inland sea, which
the historian called the northern sea, is reached by passing through the Pillars of Hercules but also by
another route.

We can see this when he speaks of the circumnavigation of Africa by the Phoenicians at the bidding of King
Necos of Egypt.

The historian says in fact: “Libya is washed on all sides by the sea except where it joins Asia, as was first
demonstrated, as far as our knowledge goes, by the Egyptian king Necos who, after calling off the
construction of the canal between the Nile and the Arabian gulf, sent out a fleet manned by a Phoenician
crew with the order that on their return, they should sail into the northern sea through the Pillars of
Hercules and by this route return to Egypt" (…ἐς τὸ ὀπίσω δι᾿ ῾Ηρακλέων στηλέων διεκπλέειν (ἕως) ἐς τὴν
βορηίην θάλασσαν καὶ οὕτω ἐς Αἴγυπτον ἀπικνέεσθαι.).

This phrase in boldface means that on their return the Phoenicians had to sail into the northern sea
entering from the Pillars of Hercules and not from another place, specifying this with the phrase: "and by
this route return to Egypt".

But the sentence in boldface is not the order that Necos gave the Phoenicians, but Herodotus’s
interpretation of that order.

Indeed, if the sentence had been the order given, it would follow that also for the king of Egypt it was
possible to enter the northern sea from two points. Whereas the order imparted to the Phoenicians, which
was in any case to pass through a strait, shows that Necos knew that on the route to follow in returning to
Egypt they had to pass through a strait and this knew was possible only if one knew that such a route could
be followed . And since Necos specified that Egypt was to be reached in such a way, that is, following that
route, it follows that Neco also knew that without retracing the circumnavigation it was possible to return
to Egypt only through what is today the Strait of Gibraltar.

Therefore, if also according to Herodotus the only way to return to Egypt on having completed the
circumnavigation was, other than retracing one's route, to penetrate into the northern sea through the
Pillars of Hercules, which at that point would be at the Strait of Gibraltar, the historian would not have
specified it since it was, precisely, the only possible way.

So also for Herodotus it was possible to enter the inland sea, or northern sea, from the Pillars of Hercules
and from another place which, also for the historian, was in Europe.

It was in Europe also for the historian because:

Herodotus, on speaking of Sataspes who had to circumnavigate Libya to avoid being impaled says: "
Sataspes sailed towards the Pillars of Hercules. Once past them and having rounded the Libyan
promontory called Solunte (Soloeis in the Greek version), he headed towards the south.

For Herodotus, the Soloeis promontory was immediately after, or shortly after, the Pillars of Hercules.

So immediately after, or shortly after doubling the Soloeis promontory in the opposite direction, according
to Herodotus there were the Pillars of Hercules which were, still in his words, an entrance to the northern
sea, as we saw previously in speaking of the Phoenicians.

Once again Herodotus: "all that part of Libya that borders on the northern sea, beginning with Egypt to the
Solunte (Soloentos in the Greek version) promontory, which marks the end of the Libyan continent, is
inhabited by Libyans."

For Herodotus the Soloentos promontory marked the end of Libya, and since, as the historian himself
makes us understand, the northern sea arrived up to the Soloentos promontory, the latter, or somewhere
near it, was a point of access to the northern sea.

So one may think that the Soloentos promontory, or a point near it, was the other entrance to the northern
sea.
But the Soloentos promontory, or a point near it, could not have been the other entrance since Soloentos
was the Soloeis promontory.

In fact, if this were not so, Soloentos would have been to the north of Soloeis but would have been the
promontory of an island and not a Libyan one and vice versa.

The only difference between Soloentos and Soloeis is that the first one is the name in Greek and the second
one the Punic name.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

So, given that Soloentos was Soloeis and just after rounding Soloeis going in the opposite direction,
according to Herodotus, they came to the Pillars of Hercules; the latter for the historian represented the
first point of access to the northern sea (obviously following the route of King Neco's Phoenicians, who
sailed from the Red Sea, which the historian called the Erythrean Sea).

For Herodotus, the Pillars of Hercules were the first point of access to the northern sea, because if they had
been the second, the Soloentos - Soloeis promontory (which marked the end of Libya and which the
historian placed just after, or shortly after passing the Pillars), would be on an island to the north of Libya,
and not on Libyan land.

Therefore, for Herodotus the Pillars of Hercules were the first point of access and the second was farther
north and, more to the north of the Pillars, for Herodotus, was Europe.

There was Europe for Herodotus since:

Herodotus does not believe that there is the sea to the east and to the north of Europe.

But Herodotus does not even know if there is a sea even to the west of Europe. In fact, in one passage he
says: "for those (extreme regions) of Europe to the west, I can say nothing certain….as I do not know if
there are the Cassiteride Islands" because "for as hard as I have tried, I have not succeeded in hearing from
any eye witness that there is a sea beyond Europe."

So Herodotus calls the inland sea the northern sea because he considers it the sea farthest to the north.

Since the historian called the inland sea the northern sea, the latter thus separated Libya from Europe. And
given that for Herodotus Europe extended to all the west and Libya, instead, ended at the Soloentos -
Soloeis promontory, which the historian placed immediately after or shortly after passing the Pillars of
Hercules which was the first point of access to the northern sea that separated, precisely, Libya from
Europe, for the historian Europe was farther to the north then the Pillars.

So even for Herodotus the second point of access to the inland, or northern sea, through which the
Phoenicians did not have to pass to return to Egypt, was in Europe.

Now let us return to what we find in the Timaeus.

As we have seen, since Sardinia and the other western Mediterranean islands could not have been Atlantis,
why does the priest say that this legendary island was beyond the Pillars of Hercules?

But if we read the Timaeus carefully, we see that it is not the priest who says that the island was beyond
the Pillars of Hercules; in fact, he says: "Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your city in our
histories that arouse admiration, but one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valor: indeed, our
texts say that your city once put an end to a mighty power that advanced arrogantly over the whole of
Europe and Asia together, which came from the outside, from the Atlantic Ocean. In those days that
faraway sea was navigable, since there was an island in front of the strait that you call, as you said, the
Pillars of Heracles,…” (,νῆσον γἁρ πρὁ τοῦ στόματος εἷχεν ὃ καλεῖτε‚ ὥς ϕατε‚ ὑμεῖς ῾Ηρακλέους στήλας,).

Well, these words in boldface demonstrate beyond all doubt that prior to the meeting with Solon the
Egyptians did not know that the Greeks called the Pillars of Hercules a strait beyond which, according to
what the Greeks erroneously believed, there was the external sea.

With that phrase it is as if the priest had said: "since there was an island in front of the strait that you call
the Pillars of Hercules as you just informed us, …". Therefore the Egyptians did not know of the existence
of a strait with the name "Pillars of Hercules" and even less did they know that that strait was the one
formed by Tunisia and the Kerkennah islands (which I shall call only Kerkennah for convenience).

So it is not the priest of Sais who places Atlantis beyond the Pillars of Hercules, but the Greeks (Solon and
those who accompanied him). The priest referred to the Strait of Gibraltar and this is proved by the fact
that if the strait we are speaking of had in reality been that of the Pillars of Hercules, what would emerge
would be a map identical to the one proposed by the theory that Sardinia was Atlantis, that is, that the part
of Europe which from Spain, included, arrived up to Tuscany, that is Europe to the Tyrrhenian, would be
the part of the continent that surrounded the sea in which Atlantis was located. But as we have seen, this is
impossible.

Thus the strait the priest is talking about is that of Gibraltar and not that of the Pillars of Hercules and
consequently if Atlantis ever existed, it was in the Atlantic Ocean.

And so, as we have seen, even in the Timaeus emerges that conviction, widespread among the Greeks and
persons of Greek culture and of which I speak in “Hanno and the hoax of the strait”: if beyond a strait there
is the external sea, that is the strait of the Pillars of Hercules.

But when were the Pillars of Hercules moved to Gibraltar? and who was responsible for this?

In his De ora marittima, the Iberian Rufius Festus Avienius (4th century AD), speaks of the southern coasts
of today's Spain as charted by the Athenian Euctemon (5th century BC) who, however, finds no
confirmation with the Strait of Gibraltar. The Iberian author says: "Between the two places passes a
channel, which is called Herma or the route of Hercules. Euctemon, an inhabitant of the city of Amphipolis,
says that in length it is no more than one hundred and eight miles (about 160 km; a mile was 1480 metri),
and that the distance between the two sides is three miles (about 4.5 km)", and goes on to say: "The
Athenian Euctemon also says that there are no cliffs or peaks rising on the two sides; he narrates that
halfway between Libyan land and the European side there are two islands and says that these are called
the Pillars of Hercules; he refers that they are distant thirty stadia (slightly more than five kilometers apart).
He also says that around them and for a great distance, the sea is stagnant and shallow; and that ships
with cargoes cannot approach them owing to the shallow water and muddy beach".

As we can see, this description does not match the Strait of Gibraltar. In fact, the Strait of Gibraltar is not
160 km in length, but at the most 70 km; its width is not 4.5 km but 14 km at its narrowest point. But even
if we neglect the length and width of the strait, which do not correspond, what is absolutely out of place is
the presence in the middle of the strait ("between the land of Libya and the European side"), of those two
islands (plus a third near them, still in the words of Euctemon) which would even be surrounded at length
by a sea so shallow that the water stagnates and owing to this shallowness and the muddy beach, ships
with cargoes cannot approach the land (the shallowest depth in the Strait of Gibraltar is three hundred
meters).
So let us put aside this description as fanciful to say the least.

While the first among the Greeks who clearly describes the position of the Pillars of Hercules as between
Tunisia and the Kerkennah islands, is Aristotle (see my essay “The first Pillars of Hercules of the
ancients...”), Dicaearchus of Messina (350-290 BC), who was a student of the philosopher, also points it out.
He states that the distance from the Peloponnesus to the Pillars of Hercules was ten thousand stadia and in
fact this corresponds, since the route to follow was: Peloponnesus - Crete - Cyrenaica – Syrte Major – Syrte
Minor - Pillars of Hercules (Kerkennah) amounting to almost 1800 km., that is, ten thousand stadia (an Attic
stadium measured 177.60 metres).

As we shall see later on, that distance of ten thousand stadia was criticised by Polybius (200- 118 BC).

That the route to the Pillars of Hercules was as stated above can also be seen in the poem Argonautica by
Apollonius of Rhodes (295-215 BC), the head librarian of the Library of Alexandria of Egypt. In the
Argonautica, the Pillars are in the Kerkennah islands.

Apollonius of Rhodes' poem deals with Jason's voyage in search of the golden fleece and narrates that
when Jason and his companions were at the end of their voyage and were about to return to Greece, when
they sighted the Peloponnesus it ensued that: "…But it was not the destiny of the heroes to land in Greece
before having struggled at the extreme boundaries of Libya" and shortly after it says: "Then, a frightening
Boreal (northern) storm carried them away and took them towards the Libyan sea for nine days and nine
nights, until they arrived deep into the Syrte, from which there was no return for ships forced to enter
there". For Apollonius the Syrte was at the extreme limits of Libya which for Herodotus ended with the
Soloentos - Solòeis promontory which, still in the words of Herodotus, was immediately after, or shortly
after, the Pillars of Hercules, which for Aristotle (who like Herodotus lived before Apollonius), were to be
found between Tunisia and the Kerkennah islands, that is, immediately after the Lesser Syrte (see the essay
“The first Pillars of Hercules of the ancients…”).

Let us go on.

The Argonauts carried the ship Argo on their shoulders for twelve days and twelve nights until they reached
Lake Tritonis, where they searched unsuccessfully for a way out. Then, after making an offering to the gods
of the place, Triton approached them and, after hearing the words of the Argonaut Euphemus, extended
his hand and pointed out to the heroes a sea in the distance and the deep mouth of the lake and said: "The
passage is down there... it is a narrow one that leads out. There, beyond Crete, extends the foggy sea to
the land of Pelope (the Peloponnesus). But when from the lake you have reached the sea, keep to the right
and follow the land closely until it goes up (he is describing the Syrte Major), then, when it turns the other
way, you will have smooth sailing after passing the promontory (he has described the Cyrenaica, above
which is Crete and still farther up, the Peloponnesus). But now go and do not worry..."

As we can see, from this emerges that both the route from the Peloponnesus to the Pillars of Hercules was
the one mentioned above and that up to and including Apollonius of Rhodes the Pillars were still in the
Kerkennahs.

After Apollonius of Rhodes, he who speaks of the Pillars of Hercules is Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276-194 BC),
who was born almost twenty years after Apollonius and was thus his contemporary and successor at the
Library of Alexandria.
As concerns our research, the information we have about him comes from Strabo (1st century BC - 1st
century AD).

At first sight, from a passage by Strabo it would appear that in Eratosthenes’ opinion, the Pillars are at
Gibraltar: "Eratosthenes affirms that from Massalia (Marseilles) to the Pillars of Hercules the distance is
seven thousand stadia, six thousand instead from the Pyrenees".

But the distances that the librarian cites in the passage above had been referred to him (or he had read in
some book) since, as we understand from what Strabo reports, he had never been to the places he
mentions. He had certainly learned that those distances from Massalia and the Pyrenees were those up to
the strait which he, as a good Greek of the 3rd century BC, calls the Pillars of Hercules on the basis of the
conviction mentioned above (calling it only the Pillars of Hercules for convenience, as did the translator of
Hanno, as I mention in “Hanno and the hoax of the strait” and as all the Greeks and those of Greek culture
had done, for the same reason: for convenience) and interprets those distances to the strait as the
distances from two places to the Pillars of Hercules.

Let us go on.

In the theory that Sardinia is Atlantis, the Cyrene librarian is accused of being the one who moved the
Pillars of Hercules to Gibraltar and, according to this accusation, may have done this out of a love for
symmetry or a misunderstanding as to which was the external sea.

As concerns the first hypothesis, Eratosthenes may have shifted the Pillars of Hercules to Gibraltar for a
love of symmetry which, according to the accuser, there should be between West and East owing to the
fact that the world had become larger since Alexander the Great had extended the frontiers eastward as far
as India and to the west there was no longer the Carthaginian pincer.

But if we are dealing with symmetry, we should speak instead of that between the northern part and the
southern part of the inhabited lands. In fact, Strabo says: "In the third book of his Geography, Eratosthenes
traces the map of the inhabited world. He divides it into two, from west to east with a line parallel to the
equator. As the limits, he takes the Pillars of Hercules to the west and the headlands and last mountains of
the chain that delimits the northern boundary of India to the east. The line he traces starts from the Pillars,
passes through the Strait of Sicily, the southern headlands of the Peloponnesus and Attica, and continues
to Rhodes and the gulf of Issos. Up to there, he says, the line in question crosses the sea and passes
between the continents enclosing it (in effect, our sea stretches the entire distance up to Cilicia), then,
more or less in a straight line it follows from peak to peak the Taurus chain as far as India", and further on
he says: "he uses this line to divide the inhabited world into two halves which he calls the northern half
and the southern half".

Thus, Eratosthenes divides the inhabited world into north and south and not into east and west.

Furthermore, in another passage from Strabo emerges a ‘stratagem’ used by the librarian to save
something that was a part of his overall vision of the inhabited world. On reporting the distances given by
the librarian between the starting point in India and the Pillars of Hercules, Strabo says: "Then Eratosthenes
adds to the distance in length another two thousand stadia towards the west and the same number to the
east, so as to conserve the theory that holds that the width is less than half the length ".

So it is not for the love of symmetry that Eratosthenes may have moved the Pillars of Hercules.
Concerning the second hypothesis, according to his accuser the librarian may have moved the Pillars of
Hercules because of a misunderstanding about which was the external sea, caused by the fact that what
may have taken place is that the ancient texts that speak of the Inland Sea and the External Sea had
continued to be used in years in which instead, the knowledge of Gibraltar and the sea that begins there
had become a fact.

But from Strabo we understand instead that the knowledge of Gibraltar and consequently of the sea that
begins from there, was not a fact for Eratosthenes.

In fact, the historian states:

"He cannot go beyond in the lack of knowledge of places, of these places and those which follow them
towards the west up to the Pillars of Hercules" referring to the librarian who places Rome and Carthage on
the same meridian.

"We can only say for the moment that Timosthenes, Eratosthenes and their predecessors totally ignored
Iberia and Celtica".

So it is not even because of a misunderstanding about the external sea that Eratosthenes may have moved
the Pillars of Hercules to Gibraltar.

Just as it may not have been the librarian who had moved them.

Infact, as we have seen, prior to the librarian the Pillars of Hercules were still at the Kerkennahs; so if he
was the one who had moved them, he would have had to move them to a place about which he knew
nothing.

Therefore, let us put aside the librarian of Cyrene.

And yet, someone did move the Pillars and it is to be pointed out that whoever it was shifted an important
point of reference for the Greeks without anyone knowing about this and nobody noticing it, which is to say
that the move took place unobserved. But how was this possible? In one way or another it would have
been known, if not directly from him, at least from someone later on. Instead, this did not come about and
no one ever spoke about it.

So who was it that shifted the Pillars of Hercules and how did he succeed in keeping this a secret?

The answer to the first question is that only the Greek who saw the strait with his own eyes, that strait
beyond which there was the real external sea, could have shifted the Pillars of Hercules.

Thus we have to go back at least to the Phocaeans who are, as Herodotus states, the first of the Greeks to
undertake long voyages. But he does not say that the Phocaeans were also the first among the Greeks to
sail beyond the Pillars of Hercules, just as he does not say in that passage that Tartessos was discovered
after passing through them.

But if the historian does not say that Tartessos had been discovered after sailing through the Pillars of
Hercules, it is because the Phocaeans did not say that they had sailed beyond the Pillars of Hercules or the
strait before discovering it.

We can see this on reading a passage taken from a story that the Theraeans tell as narrated by Herodotus
in another book of his Histories. The passage says: “Hence them (the Samians), after having set sail from
the island of Platea (now Bomba near the Cyrenaica) with a strong desire to reach Egypt, were blown off
course by the wind from the east and, since the wind did not cease to blow, once past the Pillars of
Hercules, they arrived in Tartessos as if guided by a god".

Well, if the Phocaeans had said they had gone beyond the Pillars of Hercules or the strait when they
discovered Tartessos, the Samians, as instead is narrated by the Theraeans, would not have arrived in
Tartessos “as if guided by a god”, because that would have been the route to follow to arrive there.

Furthermore, the Samians would not even have needed a god to guide them there. Their ship was in fact at
the mercy of the east wind only as far as the Pillars; once past them, as we can see from the passage, the
ship was governable; the Samians, infact, arrived at Tartessos not "as if helped by a god” implying that they
had been in difficulty, but “as if guided by a god”, implying that they had followed the indications of
someone and this was possible only if the ship was governable.

So, the Samians did not know that once they had gone beyond the Pillars of Hercules, say the Theraeans
(referred to the Pillars), they would arrive in Tartessos.

For this reason, according to Herodotus, Tartessos was inside the inhabited land.

As we have seen, Herodotus himself said, as did Strabo when speaking to Eratosthenes (see above), that he
did not know the westernmost regions of Europe, which is to say the Iberian peninsula and France. Thus,
since the historian did not know where in Europe the internal of the inhabited land began or ended and if
he had not been told that something or someone was to be found or reached by passing through the Pillars
of Hercules or the strait, that something or someone for him was to be found within the inhabited land.

An example is to be found in a passage in Herodotus: “The Celts were settled beyond the Pillars of Hercules
and bordered on the Cynesians, who are the last inhabitants of Europe to the west”. Even for the historian,
the Celts lived in Europe; but on the external side of the inhabited land since it had been referred to the
historian, who had never been to those places, that the Celts lived beyond the strait which he, as we shall
understand later on, based on that Greek conviction, called the Pillars of Hercules. For example, the Celts
could not have lived in Iberia because nobody had told Herodotus that the Phocaeans had discovered it by
sailing beyond the Pillars of Hercules or the strait. As a consequence, for Herodotus Iberia was within the
inhabited land and thus also Tartessos.

The same can be said for Carthage. Indeed, even if it was beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Kerkennah), for
the Greeks (thus also for Herodotus) it was before this and thus within the inhabited land and this because
no one had ever told them that it was beyond the Pillars (and even less so could they have told them, for an
obvious reason, that it was beyond the strait).

So for Herodotus the Phocaeans discovered Tartessos by arriving there following the Tyrrhenia– Iberia –
Tartessos route, while the Samians, still for Herodotus, arrived there sailing beyond the Pillars of Hercules
but “as if guided by a god”.

And given that:

around 600 BC the Phocaeans founded Menace, which was near Malaga which in turn is some 130 km
from the Strait of Gibraltar, but the farthest place they arrived at was Tartessos.

So Tartessos was beyond Menace.

From all this we understand that Tartessos was beyond the Strait of Gibraltar and so the Pillars of Hercules
of which the Theraeans speak in the passage cited above are those of the Greek conviction.

This is demonstrated by another fact from which emerges that the main reason for the above being
correct, but also why the Phocaeans did not say that when they discovered Tartessos they had sailed
beyond the Pillars of Hercules:

the Samians arrived in Tartessos after the Phocaeans and just before the foundation of Cyrene.

But just before the foundation of Cyrene, Libya was still unknown to and unexplored by the Greeks.

We can see this when Herodotus speaks of the foundation of Cyrene, which took place in the 7th century
BC.

First the historian reports what the Theraens narrate, that is, that Grinnus, king of the island of Thera, went
to Delphi where he questioned the Pythia, who answered that he should found a city in Libya. Grinnus
replied that he was too old to undertake such an enterprise and asked the oracle to impart the order to one
of the youths accompanying him and indicated one whose name was Battus. The story continues: "but
then, after starting from there, they took no heed of the oracle since they did not know where Libya was
and dared not send colonists to an unknown destination".

However, since it had not rained on the island of Thera for seven consecutive years, the Theraeans
consulted the Pythia at Delphi who repeated the order to found a colony in Libya. Since there was no other
solution to their problems, the Theraeans sent people to Crete to see if any of the people there had ever
been to Libya. And it continues in this way: "Wandering around the island, these explorers... met a
fisherman named Corobius, who stated that he had been blown off course, and had reached Libya and
Platea, a Libyan island… Corobius, having guided the explorers to this island of Platea, was left there with a
supply of food for a certain number of months; and hurriedly took to the sea once again to report the island
to the Theraeans. However, since their absence lasted longer than expected, Corobius finished all his
supplies. But then a ship from Samos, whose owner was Coleus, that was sailing to Egypt (Egypt was not
part of Libya), was blown off course in the direction of Platea and the Samians, informed by Corobius of the
entire affair, left him provisions for a year. Hence them, after having set sail from the island of Platea with
a strong desire to reach Egypt…they arrived in Tartessos as if guided by a god". In the meantime, the
Theraeans returned to their country and reported that they had taken possession of an island near Libya. It
was then decided to send men under the command of Battus, and sent them with two fifty-oar ships.

At this point, Herodotus continues by narrating what the Cyrenes had reported. They, after giving their
version as concerns Battus, go on by saying that the Theraeans remained on Platea for two years; after two
years on the island, they colonized a place named Aziri which was on Libyan land facing the island of Platea,
where they remained for six years. But in the seventh year the Libyans artfully convinced the Theraeans to
move farther to the west where, still the Theraeans, founded Cyrene. The story continues: "Until he was
alive the founder Battus who reigned for forty years, and his son Arcesilaos, reigned for sixteen, the
inhabitants of Cyrene remained of the same number as those who at the beginning had been sent to found
the colony. But under the third king, Battus, whose epithet was Felix, the Pythia with her responses began
inciting the Greeks of all regions to set sail to inhabit Libya together with those of Cyrene, since the latter
were tempting them with the promise of sharing the land with them."

As we can see, just before the founding of Cyrene, the Greeks (the Theraeans were Greeks) did not know
Libya and had not explored it and therefore, Hercules could not have planted his pillars previous to that
time.

So, at the time of those Phoceans and Samians who had arrived in Tartessos, the Pillars of Hercules did not
yet exist and consequently the Samians could not have said that they had sailed beyond the Pillars of
Hercules; instead, they spoke of sailing beyond a strait, a strait beyond which there is the external sea,
which is to say the Strait of Gibraltar.

As, Herodotus, could not say that the Phocaeans had also been the first of the Greeks to have sailed beyond
them.

As, moreover, he could not even have said that the Samians had been the first since for him, once they had
passed the Pillars they had returned inside the inhabited land to arrive in Tartessos.

As concerns Tartessos, the only difference between the Phocaeans and the Samians, two Greek peoples, is
that the Samians arrived in that port of call not only by sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar, but also by
passing from Libya to Europe, while the Phocaeans discovered it by following the coast of Europe only
(Tyrrhenia- Iberia - Tartessos) and this may explain why the Phocaeans did not even say that they had sailed
through a strait.

Therefore, the Pillars of Hercules came into being after the foundation of Cyrene (which took place
approximately in 630 BC) but only after Carthage, alarmed by Greek expansion into the western
Mediterranean, had blocked their route to Tartessos, and therefore to the Strait of Gibraltar, in Europe,
from Spain (by controlling the southern part), and in Libya from the Syrtes (from Leptis Magna, situated at
less than a hundred kilometers from the Syrte Major to obstruct a possible Greek advance from Cyrene).

And so we can also understand why Homer (8th century BC) and Hesiod (between the 8th and the 7th
century BC) never speak of the Pillars of Hercules in their poems.

If we do not believe Solon's story of Atlantis, the first to mention the Pillars of Hercules was Pindar (518-
438 BC).

But the question that arises spontaneously is: why were the Pillars of Hercules placed there between
Tunisia and the Kerkennah Islands?

The answer is to be found in the fact that the Samians said they had arrived in Tartessos after passing
through a strait, while the Phocaeans did not say this.

So for the Greeks there was no strait in Europe between Iberia and Tartessos, while in Libya there was a
strait formed by Tunisia and the Kerkennah Islands that the Carthaginians don’t allow them from
approaching. And since the Samians, arrived in Tartessos after sailing through a strait in which they arrived
because, set sail from the island of Platea, they had been blown off course by a wind from the east (and
since the wind did not cease to blow, they, indeed, have gone beyond that strait arriving in Tartessos as if
guided by a god) that strait, formed by Tunisia and the Kerkennah, was for the Greeks the strait that the
Samians sailed through to arrive in Tartessos.
And thus the Pillars of Hercules came into existence.

But the Carthaginian blockade from the Syrtes tells us that the Greeks never saw the Pillars of Hercules
and this explains why they did not know that Carthage was beyond them and also why the Greeks, at least
those who almost up to the end of the 4th century BC (with the exception of Aristotle), on speaking of the
Pillars of Hercules described them without there being any confirmation of this. See Euctemon or
Damastes, who according to Avienus said that the water that passed between the Pillars was just under
seven stadia (not even 1250 meters) in breadth, or Scylax of Caryanda who, still according to Avienus,
stated that the sea between the Pillars was of the same breadth as that of the Bosphorus (even this is less
than 1250 meters).

To confirm the fact that the Greeks did not know that Carthage was beyond the Pillars of Hercules, there is
an episode reported by the historian Sallust (1st century BC) in his Jugurthine War. The episode deals with
the Carthaginians and Cyrenians who, after many battles, decided to fix the boundary between the two
empires in the Greater Syrte. In chapter 79 of the Jugurthine War we find: "At the time the Carthaginians
were expanding their domination over most of Africa, the Cyrenese were also rich and powerful; sandy and
uniform was the land between them (the Syrte Major): there was neither a river nor a mountain to mark
their boundaries. This caused them to enter into serious and incessant battles... During one of the truces
they reached an agreement according to which on a given day ambassadors would set out from their
cities (Carthage and Cyrene): the point (of the Syrte Major) at which they would meet it would have been
considered the common boundary of both peoples. Thus two brothers named Philaeni sent from Carthage
hurried to complete the walk; those from Cyrene proceeded more slowly...

The Cyrenese, realizing that they were far behind... accused the Carthaginians of having set out too soon
and broke the agreement... Since the Carthaginians wanted other agreements so long as they were
equitable, the Greeks left this choice to the Philaeni: either they let themselves be buried alive in the place
they said was their boundary or, on the same conditions, the Greeks could advance as far as they liked. The
Philaeni accepted the agreement and sacrificed their lives to their country: so they were buried alive. In
that place the Carthaginians erected an altar to the Philaeni brothers".

If the Carthaginians had not been sure that the Greeks did not know where Carthage was, they would never
have accepted or proposed the agreement mentioned above for an obvious reason (the distance of
Carthage from the Greater Syrte compared to that from Cyrene). The Philaeni certainly started from Leptis
Magna, the city which the Greeks surely thought was Carthage, and the Carthaginians made them believe
it.

Let us go on.

Another personage who could have seen the Strait of Gibraltar and called it the Pillars of Hercules was
Pytheas of Massalia (4th century BC) who supposedly visited northern Europe, from Brittany up to Thule
and other regions.

But from what has come down to us about him we understand that he never went through the Strait of
Gibraltar, not lastly since if we take into account the period in which his travels apparently occurred (4th
century BC) it would have been extremely difficult for him since it is doubtful that the Carthaginians would
have allowed a Greek to go through the Strait of Gibraltar (which remained under Carthaginian control up
to the end of the Second Punic War in 202 BC).

Strabo says: "He (Pytheas) misled many people, saying that he had visited all of Brittany on foot... he also
brought back tales of Thule and those regions in which there is no true land… These are the tales of Pytheas
who, after returning from these places, also says that he had visited all the part of Europe on the Ocean,
from Cadiz to Tanai" (the latter, according to some of the ancients, divided Europe from Asia).

If Pytheas had travelled through the Strait of Gibraltar the first places he would have visited were those
from Cadiz northwards.
But as we can see, Pytheas visited those places only after returning from the north of Europe.

Moreover, none of the ancients who speak of him (among whom Dicaearchus, Eratosthenes, Polybius and
Strabo) say that Pytheas had passed through the Pillars of Hercules when he began his travels.

But if we admit that he did go through the Strait of Gibraltar, then we would absolutely have to take one
fact into account: how is it that the Pillars of Hercules, for Dicaearchus, his contemporary who died
twenty years after him, and for Apollonius Rhodius, as we saw previously, are still at the Kerkennahs?

So let us put aside Pytheas as well.

But after Pytheas there is no one else to cite, except for he who moved the Pillars of Hercules and, as I said
above, this could have been done only by the Greek who saw with his own eyes the strait beyond which
lay the true external sea.

And the first of the Greeks, from the time of the coming into existence of the Pillars of Hercules, who had
seen the strait beyond which is the external sea was Polybius. It was possible for him because in Rome he
had succeeded in befriending Scipio Aemilianus whom he followed in the Third Punic War and witnessed
the destruction of Carthage. Polybius was a hipparch, that is, the commander of the cavalry of the Achaean
League which took the side neither of Macedonia nor of Rome. He was involved in the repression of the
supporters of the Macedonian king Perseus and of those who had not openly sided with Rome. For this
reason he was taken there as a prisoner to be tried. But in Rome he befriended Scipio Aemilianus and this
friendship with the Roman general made it possible for him to make long journeys to Alexandria, Iberia,
Gallia, Africa and along the Atlantic coast of the latter.

Thus is was Polybius who shifted the location of the Pillars of Hercules.

But for Polybius of Megalopolis, the Pillars of Hercules were always at Gibraltar and always had been there
because he did not know that they were at the Kerkennahs.

This emerges because when he criticizes Dicaearchus, he does so not because of the position of the Pillars
but because of the distance; for Polybius, that distance of ten thousand stadia from the Peloponnesus to
the Pillars of Hercules was instead twenty-two thousand five hundred. But as stated above, while the ten
thousand was the route from the Peloponnesus to Crete to the Cyrenaica to the Syrte Major to the Syrte
Minor to the Pillars of Hercules (Kerkennah) equal to ten thousand stadia, for Polybius the route was,
briefly stated, Cape Maleas – Strait of Messina – Narbonne and Strait of Gibraltar, which is to say the Pillars
of Hercules by Greek conviction, equal to twenty-two thousand five hundred stadia.

As previously stated, Polybius criticized Dicaearchus' distance of ten thousand stadia because he was
convinced that even for the historian of Messina the Pillars were at Gibraltar and thus the route to follow
to arrive there was the same he followed. When Dicaearchus says that from the Peloponnesus to the Strait
of Messina the distance is three thousand stadia, Polybius thinks that this is part of the distance of ten
thousand stadia and therefore, on subtracting these from the latter we have a remainder of seven
thousand to cover the distance from the Strait of Messina to the Pillars of Hercules (by the Greeks’
conviction) and for Polybius this was unacceptable.

Strabo, since it is he who speaks of it, says: "When Dicaearchus affirms that from the Peloponnesus to the
Pillars of Hercules there is a distance of ten thousand stadia and that the distance between the
Peloponnesus and the furthermost bend of the Adriatic Sea is greater (Polybius agrees with this distance),
just as when, for the distance to the Pillars he gives three thousand stadia as the distance to the Strait of
Sicily, so the remaining leg from the Strait to the Pillars results as seven thousand, Polybius says that he
does not care if the calculation of three thousand stadia was found correctly or not; but of the other
distance, that of seven thousand stadia, he holds that it is in any case unacceptable".

Also as concerns Eratosthenes, Polybius is convinced that in the librarian’s opinion the Pillars of Hercules
are at Gibraltar and an example of this is the distance from Massalia and the Pyrenees to the Pillars of
Hercules, which Polybius himself criticizes.

But Polybius did not need to shift the Pillars of Hercules and this because of that Greek conviction. Indeed,
for him it is normal for them to be at Gibraltar and he has in front of him the proof of that conviction: at
that place there is a strait beyond which there is the external sea and therefore if beyond a strait there is
the external sea, that is the strait of the Pillars of Hercules.

In fact more than Polybius, it was that conviction of the Greeks that shifted the Pillars of Hercules. This has
lasted up to the present and also explains the fact that none of the ancients, and not only them, has ever
spoken of a different position of the Pillars of Hercules.

Let us now return to the Timaeus.

The fact that the strait the priest speaks of is that of Gibraltar exempts Plato and also Solon from the
accusation of having invented the story of Atlantis. In fact, if one of the two had made this story up, the
author would have undoubtedly been the only Greek who knew of the existence of the Strait of Gibraltar
and of its being the only entrance to the inland sea.

But did Atlantis really exist?

In my opinion it existed and still does.

For me, what sank is that island formed by the three belts of sea and two of land where the most important
king resided.

And the only island that has the characteristics for being Atlantis is Greenland.

Greenland is in a sea surrounded by a continent (the Americas).

From Greenland it is possible for voyagers to arrive at the other islands (among which Queen Elizabeth
Island and Baffin Island) and from these to arrive to the entire continent which is in front of it (the
Americas).

Its dimensions correspond perfectly with those of Atlantis. Its area is approximately 2,170,000 square
kilometres and, if we sum the areas of the parts of the island subdivided among the ten brothers who were
the first kings to govern Atlantis, of which parts the largest and most beautiful was assigned to the first
born, Atlas, and in which there was that plain of three thousand by two thousand stadia (approximately a
hundred and ninety thousand square kilometres) that surrounded the city, plus the island formed by the
belts of sea and land where the most important king resided, which belonged still to Atlas by right,
including the belts as well as the parts of the islands that could not be exploited, it would surely cover the
whole exactly.
Moreover, Greenland's point farthest to the south terminates with Cape Farewell in the direction of the
Strait of Gibraltar and in my opinion this is the part that belonged to Eumele as stated in the Critias, "the
twin brother of Atlas born after him, who had received by right the extremity of the island towards the
Pillars of Hercules".

As concerns the metals and the plain, we cannot speak of this since 84% of Greenland is now covered with
ice.

However, the translations of a term that we find in a passage of the Timaeus would appear to exclude
Greenland. In the passage in question we find that Atlantis was “ πρὁ τοῦ στόματος ” which has been
translated as: “ in front of the strait ” or as “ at that opening ” and “ before that mouth ”. So, according to
these translations, Atlantis was in front of the Strait of Gibraltar, while Greenland is not. But the term
“πρὁ”, besides “ in front of ” and “ before ”, can also be translated as “ahead”. But while “ in front of ” and
“ before ” in order to be described as such must necessarily be visible, “ ahead ” does not require this. An
example: the island of Madeira, the Canary Islands, the Azores and the Americas are ahead of the Strait of
Gibraltar, not in front of or before. In fact, those places are not visible from the strait (the places closest to
the strait are the Canary Islands and Madeira: the former are almost a thousand kilometres away and the
latter more than a thousand kilometres away). Thus Greenland cannot be excluded since it is ahead of the
Strait of Gibraltar.

Finally, there is another fact in favour of Greenland as being Atlantis: if we observe the geological history of
that island, which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark and which in Danish means Green Land, we discover
that the central part is concave, forming a trough that reaches a depth of 360 meters below sea level.

Was this caused by the weight of the ice as the geologists say? Or…

Thank you for your kind attention.

Antonio Usai

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Ramusio Venezia 1550.-- Text and maps: Antonio Usai, Photos: Google Earth, numbered and named by
Antonio Usai

Printed in English March 2014

2014 Antonio Usai