Herodotus, like all Greeks of his time, knew the continent of Africa as Libya. His usage of the term “Libya” was, however, not precise. Besides using it to refer to the continent of Africa as a whole, he used it when speaking particularly of North Africa. In fact, he divided native Africans into two groups: Libyans and Ethiopians. Libyans where those Africans living in the northern part of Africa while Ethiopian Africans where those living in the southern part of Africa (south from Egypt). In addition to these grouping of peoples, Herodotus discussed the Phoenicians and the Greeks who settled areas of North Africa as inhabitants of Africa. The Phoenicians had migrated from places around the Persian Gulf whereas the Greeks had come from the Grecian mainland and islands.1
Nevertheless, Herodotus was aware of the ethnic and racial diversity of the two native African peoples. Although he applied the term “Libyans” to refer to all Africans other than Ethiopians, he didn’t present Libyans as a single ethnic or racial group. On book IV, chapters 167 to 196, he enumerates all the different Libyan tribes that he knew. Since the farthest place Herodotus visited in Africa was the city of Elephantine,2 he was unable to provide a list of Ethiopian tribes as extensive as those of Libyan tribes. But he describes a few Ethiopian tribes that he heard of through inquiries here and there, thereby showing that Ethiopians were not a single ethnic group.
Herodotus had a confused notion of Egypt. He treated it as the frontier country between Africa and Asia. On the one hand, he included the Mediterranean coast of Egypt in his description of the Asia he knew; on the other hand, he considered the areas of Egypt away from the Mediterranean coast as parts of Africa. Moreover, he uses the Red sea and Mediterranean shores of Egypt as starting and ending points respectively for the circumnavigation of Africa that he uses to demonstrate that Africa is a peninsula, thereby indicating that both coasts of Egypt are in Africa.
It is Herodotus that tells us about the first successful circumnavigation of the African continent on record.3 Phoenician sailors, in an expedition commissioned by Egyptian Pharaoh Necho II,4 successfully sailed round Africa. They departed from the Gulf of Aqaba moving Southeast. Next by passing through the Straits of Bab el Mandeb, they sailed first East and afterwards South through the Indian ocean. Then rounding the Cape of Good Hope, they headed west through the Atlantic ocean. After that, passing through the Strait of Gibraltar, they entered the Mediterranean sea, and making their way North they finally arrived in Egypt. It took them three years to complete the whole voyage. They paused each year on random African coastlands to sow and harvest crops for their sustenance.
Herodotus himself doubts the truth of this accomplishment, which took place about 120 years before his birth. The reason for his skepticism is the sailors’ report that when they sailed around Africa, they found the Sun stood to their right. Herodotus, who did not know of the spherical shape of the Earth, found this impossible to believe. However, the very detail which Herodotus does not believe confirms that the Phoenician sailors’ circumnavigation of Africa is factual.
Reference Notes
- Book IV, 197. ↩︎
- Modern-day Aswan of Egypt. ↩︎
- Book IV, chapter 42. ↩︎
- Pharaoh Necho II reigned in Egypt from 610 to 595 BC. ↩︎
Sources
Herodotus (1890) The History of Herodotus. Translated into English by G. C. Macaulay. Digitally printed by Gutenberg 2001. Volume I. MacMillan and Co.: London and New York.
Herodotus (1920-1925) The History of Herodotus. With an English translation by A. D. Godley. Volumes I and II. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA.