“To the Libyan regions of the earth beyond the Pillars of Hercules, which he dedicated also in the Temple of Baal, affixing this
1. It pleased the Carthaginians that Hanno should voyage outside the Pillars of Hercules, and found cities of the Libyphoenicians. And he set forth with 60 ships of 50 oars, and a multitude of men and women, to the number of 30,000, and with wheat and other provisions.
2. After passing through the Pillars we went on and sailed for 2 days’ journey beyond, where we founded the 1st city, which we called Thymiaterium; it lay in the midst of a great plain.
3. Sailing thence toward the west we came to Solois, a promontory of Libya, bristling with trees.
4. Having set up an alter here to Neptune, we proceeded again, going toward the east for half the day, until we reached a marsh lying no great way from the sea, thickly grown with tall reeds, Here also were elephants and other wild beasts feeding, in great numbers.
5. Going beyond the marsh a day’s journey, we settled cities by the sea, which we called Caricus Murus, Gytta, Acra, Melitta and Arambys.
6. Sailing thence we came to the Lixus, a great river flowing from Libya. By it a wandering people, the Lixitae, were pasturing their flocks; with whom we remained some time, becoming friends.
7. Above these folk lived unfriendly Aethiopians, dwelling in a land full of wild beasts, and shut off by great mountains, from which they say the Lixus flows, and on the mountains live men of various shapes, cave-dwellers, who, so the Lixitae say, are fleeter of foot than horses.
8. Taking interpreters from them, we sailed 12 days toward the south along a desert, turning thence toward the east one day’s sail. There, within the recess of a bay we found a small island, having a circuit of 15 stadia; which we settled and called it Cerne. From our journey we judged it to be situated opposite Carthage; for the voyage from Carthage to the Pillars and thence to Cerne was the same.
9. Thence, sailing by a great river whose name was Chretes, we came to a lake, which had 3 islands, larger than Cerne. Running a day’s sail beyond these, we came to the end of the lake, above which rose great mountains, peopled by savage men wearing skins of wild beasts, who threw stones at us and prevented us from landing from our ships.
10. Sailing thence, we came to another river, very great and broad, which was full of crocodiles and hippopotami. And then we turned about and went back to Cerne.
11. Thence we sailed toward the south 12 days, following the shore, which was peopled by Aethiopians who fled from us and would not wait. And their speech the Lixitae who were with us could not understand.
12. But on the last day we came to great wooded mountain. The wood of the trees was fragrant, and of various kinds.
13. Sailing around these mountains for 2 days, we came to an immense opening of the sea, from either side of which there was level ground island; from which at night we saw fire leaping up every side at intervals, now greater, now less.
14. Having taken in water there, we sailed along the shore for 5 days, until we came to a great bay, which our interpreters said was called Horn of the West. In it there was a large island, and within the island a lake of the sea, in which there was another island. Landing there during the day, we saw nothing but forests, but by night many burning fires, and we heard the sound of pipes and cymbals, and the noise of drums and a great uproar. Then fear possessed us, and the soothsayers commanded us to leave the island.
15. And then quickly sailing forth, we passed by a burning country full of fragrance, from which great torrents of fire flowed down to the sea. But the land could not be come at for the heat.
16. And we sailed along with all speed, being stricken by fear. After a journey of 4 days, we saw the land at night covered with flames. And in the midst there was one lofty fire, greater than the rest, which seemed to touch the stars. By day this was seen to be a very high mountain, called Chariot of the Gods.
17. Thence, sailing along by the fiery torrents for 3 days, we came to a bay called Horn of the South.
18. In the recess of this bay there was an island, like the former one, having a lake, in which there was another island, full of savage men. There were women, too, in even greater number. They had hairy bodies, and the interpreters called them Gorillae.¹ When we pursued them we were unable to take any of the men; for they all escaped, by climbing the steep places and defending themselves with stones; but we took 3 of the women, who bit and scratched their leaders, and would not follow us. [!!] So we killed them and flayed them, and brought their skins to Carthage. For we did not Voyage further, provisions failing us.”
¹ Montesquieu comenta com muito humor no Espírito das Leis: os navegadores (ou o cronista!) pensaram haver se deparado com mulheres peludas, mas eram apenas primatas! Será o nome gorila, hoje utilizado, derivado dessa literatura?!
Toda essa expedição não foi além do contorno setentrional do continente africano!
THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE VOYAGE OF HANNO
“The Carthaginian colonies mentioned in this text can be identified only in the most general way with any existing settlement. They were destroyed and abandoned so many centuries ago that no traces are likely to remain, although the unsettled condition of the country, which has remained to the present time, has prevented any exploration of the interior or even of the coast itself.
§ 1. The Pillars of Hercules are, of course, the Straits of Gibraltar.
§ 2. The 1st city, called in the text Thymiaterium, is identified by Müller as Mehedia at the mouth of the Sbou River at about 34º 20’ N. The name of this city as we have it is a Greek corruption and to the eyes of various commentators suggests Dumathir – flat ground, or city of the plain. [Bolsominionlândia]
§ 3. The Promontory of Solois is probably the same as Cape Cantin at 32º 30’ N.
(…)
§ 5. The location of the 5 colonies mentioned in this paragraph is uncertain. Müller places the 1st at the ruins of Agouz, 32º 5’ at the mouth of the Tensift River. The 2nd perhaps at Mogador, 31º 30’. The 3rd at Agadir, 30º 25’. The 4th at the mouth of the Messa River, 30º 5’. The 5th, perhaps, at the mouth of the Gueder River, 29º 10’, or at Araouas, 29º.
§ 6. The Lixus River is quite certainly the modern Wadi Draa, emptying into the ocean at 28º 30’.
§ 8. The island of Cerne, lying in the recess of a bay, is identified with the modern Herne Island within the mouth of the Rio de Oro at about 23º 45’ N. The relative distances as mentioned in this paragraph from the Straits of Gibraltar to Carthage and to Herne Island respectively, are very nearly correct.
§ 9. The Chretes River Müller identifies with the modern St. Jean at 19º 25’, at the mouth of which the 3 islands exist as the text describes.
§ 10. The great river full of crocodiles and hippopotami is identified with the Senegal at about 16º 30’ N.
§§ 12 and 13. These great wooded mountains around which the expedition sailed, can be nothing but Cape Verde, and the immense opening of the sea is the mouth of the Gambia River at 13º 30’ N.
§ 14. The bay called Horn of the West reaches from 12º to 11º N. and the islands are the modern Bissagos.
§ 16. The high mountain called Chariot of the Gods, Müller identifies with Mt. Kakulima at 9º 30’ N.
§§ 17 and 18. The island enclosed within the bay called Horn of the South, it is now agreed by all commentators, is the modern Sherboro Sound in the British colony of Sierra Leone, about 7º 30’ N.
This identification of the places named in the text extends Hanno’s voyage about 29 degrees of latitude along the West African coast, or a total length outside of Gibraltar, following the direction of the shore line, of about 2600 miles.”
EDITIONS OF THE PERIPLUS OF HANNO
“(From Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, I, 332-3)
The narrative of Hanno was certainly extant in Greek at an early period. It is cited in the work ascribed to Aristotle on Marvellous Narratives which belongs to the 3rd century; as well as by Mela, Pliny and many later writers; and Pliny expressly speaks of it as the source whence many Greek and Roman writers had derived their information, including, as he considered, many fables.”
“The authenticity of the work may be considered as unquestionable. The internal evidence is conclusive upon that point. There is considerable doubt to the date of the voyage. On this point the narrative itself gives no information, [que belo diário de bordo!] and the name Hanno was very common at Carthage. (See Smith’s Dict. of Biog., Art. HANNO). But it has been generally agreed that this Hanno was either the father or the son of the Hamilcar who led the great Carthaginian expedition to Sicily in B.C. 480. In the former case the Periplus may be probably assigned to a date about 520; in the latter it must be brought down to about 470. This last view is that adopted by C. Müller in his edition of the Periplus (Geographi Graeci Minores, I, xxi-xxiv), where the whole subject is fully discussed; but as between him and his grandfather, the choice is hardly more than conjectural. M. Vivien de St. Martin prefers the date of 570, which had been previously adopted by Bougainville (Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, xxviii, 287).
The Periplus of Hanno was 1st published at Basle in 1533 (as an appendix to the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea), from a manuscript in the Heidelberg library (Cod. Pal. Graec., 398), the only one in which it is found. There have been numerous subsequent editions; of these the one by Falconer, 8vo, 1797, and Kluge, 8vo, Leipzig, 1829, are the most valuable. The treatise is also included in the editions of the Geographi Graeci Minores by Hudson, Gail and C. Müller. The valuable and elaborate commentary by the latest editor may be considered as in a great measure superseding all others. Besides all these editions, it has been made the subject of elaborate investigations by Gosselin, Bougainville, Major Rennell, Heeren, Ukert, Vivien de St. Martin and other geographical writers.” Cf. História da Geografia Antiga de Tozer (1897).
“Indeed there are few ancient writings that have been the subject of more copious commentary in proportion to its very limited extent. The earliest of these commentaries, inserted by Ramusio in his collection of Voyages (Venice, 1550), is curious and interesting as being derived from Portuguese sources, who were in modern times the earliest explorers of these coasts.”
CARTHAGINIAN CHRONOLOGY
“B.C. 2800 – Migration of the Phoenicians from the Persian Gulf to South Arabia and the Mediterranean, about Phoenician cities on the Mediterranean subject alternately to Babylon and Egypt.
1300 B.C. – Rise of Assyria, about Greek activity and extension of Israel.
circa 1183 B.C. – fall of Troy. [!]
1049-976 B.C. – Temporary weakness of both Assyria and Egypt makes possible the independence and alliance of Israel and Phoenicia.
~1000 B.C. – Phoenician colonies westward.
~868 B.C. – Founding of Carthage.
800-600 B.C. – At this period the Semitic commercial system centering in Mesopotamia, Phoenicia and Carthage controlled the trade of the world; continued expansion of Greece, and foundation of Greek colonies in Asia Minor and the Black Sea and westward in Italy, Sicily and Gaul.
753 B.C. – Founding of Rome [!]
650 B.C. – Decline of Assyria (…)
631 B.C. – Greek colony established at Cyrene in North Africa
(…)
606 B.C. – Fall of Nineveh
550 B.C. – Extension of Carthaginian dominions in Africa, Sicily and Sardinia.
549 B.C. – Defeat of the Carthaginians by the Greeks
548 B.C. – Fall of Babylon and rise of the Persian Empire
533 B.C. – War between Carthage and Syracuse for the possession of Sicily; Change of Carthaginian policy toward African tribes and enforcement of tribute.
528 B.C. – Rome under Etruscan kings extends its dominion in Italy
525 B.C. – Egypt conquered by the Persians
524 B.C. – Cyrene and Africa as far as the Carthaginian possessions conquered by the Persians
520 B.C. – Invasion of Italy by the Gauls
512 B.C. – Northern India conquered by the Persians
509 B.C. – Expulsion of the Tarquins and establishment of the Republic of Rome
(…)
490 B.C. – Marathon defeat [os gregos derrotam os persas]
480 B.C. – [Xerxes perde em duas frentes para os gregos na segunda guerra contra a confederação grega – Sicília e Salamina]
(…)
470 B.C. – Probable date of the Voyage of Hanno, marking the decline of Carthaginian supremacy in the northern Mediterranean and the movement to extend its trade westward by the Atlantic Ocean
390 B.C. – Invasion of Itlay by the Gauls, capture and destruction of Rome.
310 B.C. – [Romanos vencem os Etruscos]
(…)
275 B.C. – [Derrota de Pirro após invasão da Itália]
(…)
264-241 B.C. – [Primeiras Guerras Púnicas – Roma X Cartago – Cartago perde a Sicília]
218-201 B.C. – [Segundas Guerras Púnicas – Roma toma a Espanha, a Sardenha e a Córsega]
149-146 B.C. – [Terceiras Guerras Púnicas – derrota definitiva, Cartago é dizimada.]
A.D. 13 – [Roma consuma sua expansão de boa parte do mundo conhecido, controlando o Mediterrâneo – mesmo ano da morte de Augusto César]
THE “BURNING COUNTRY” OF §§14-16
“Mungo Park (Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa. London, 1799: Chap. 20) thus describes the burning of the grass in the dry season in Senegambia:
The termination of the rainy season is likewise attended with violent tornadoes; after which the wind shifts to the northeast, and continues to blow from that quarter during the rest of the year. . . . The grass soon becomes dry and withered, the rivers subside very rapidly, and many of the trees shed their leaves. . . . This wind, in passing over the great desert of Sahara, acquires a very strong attraction for humidity, and parches up everything exposed to the current. . . . Whenever the grass is sufficiently dry, the Negroes set it on fire; but in Ludamar and other Moorish countries this practice is not allowed, for it is on the withered stubble that the Moors feed their cattle until the return of the rains. The burning of the grass in Manding exhibits a scene of terrific grandeur. In the middle of the night I could see the plains and mountains, as far as my eye could reach, variegated with lines of fire; and the light reflected on the sky made the heavens appear in a blaze. In the daytime pillars of smoke were seen in every direction; while the birds of prey were observed hovering round the conflagration and pouncing down upon the snakes, lizards and other reptiles, which attempted to escape from the flames. This annual burning is soon followed by a fresh and sweet verdure, and the country is thereby rendered more healthful and pleasant.” [!!!]
CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIANS (by BOSWORTH SMITH, 1877)
“The land-locked sea, the eastern extremity of which washes the shores of Phoenicia proper, connecting as it does 3 continents, and abounding in deep gulfs, in fine harbors, and in fertile islands, seems to have been intended by nature for the early development of commerce and colonization. By robbing the ocean of half its mystery and more than half its terrors, it allured the timid mariner, even as the eagle does her young, from headland on to headland, or from islet to islet, till it became the highway of the nations of the ancient world; and the products of each of the countries whose shores it laves became the common property of all.” O único e verdadeiro mercantilismo!
Etruscos, os primeiros piratas.
“Even Egypt, with her immemorial antiquity and her exclusive civilization, deigned to open an emporium at Naucratis (550 BC) for the ships and commerce of the Greeks, creatures of yesterday as they must have seemed in comparison with her.” Ecos do Timeu-Crítias.
“But (…) it is to the Phoenicians that unquestionably belongs the foremost place. In the dimmest dawn of history, many centuries before the Greeks had set foot in Asia Minor or in Italy, before even they had settled down in secure possession of their own territories, we hear of Phoenician settlements in Asia Minor and in Greece itself, in Africa, in Macedon, and in Spain. There is hardly an island in the Mediterranean which has not preserved some traces of these early visitors (…) all have either yielded Phoenician coins and inscriptions, have retained Phoenician proper names and legends, or possess mines, long, perhaps, disused, but which worked as none but Phoenicians ever worked them.”
“The rising African factory was known to its inhabitants by the name of Kirjath-Hadeschath, or New Town, to distinguish it from the much older settlement of Utica, of which it may have been, to some extent, an offshoot. The Greeks, when they came to know of its existence, called it Karchedon, and the Romans Carthago. The date of its foundation is uncertain; but the current tradition refers it to a period about 100 years before the founding of Rome.”
“Her inhabitants cultivated friendly relations with the natives, looked upon themselves as tenants at will rather than owners of the soil, and, as such, cheerfully paid a rent to the African Berbers for the ground covered by their dwellings. Thus much, if thus much only, of truth is contained in the legend of Dido, which, adorned as it has been by the genius of Virgil, and resting in part on early local traditions, must always remain indissolubly bound up with the name of Carthage.
It was the instinct of self-preservation alone which, in the course of the 6th century, dictated a change of policy at Carthage, and transformed her peace-loving mercantile community into the war-like and conquering state, of which the whole of the western Mediterranean was so soon to feel the power. A people far less keen-sighted than the Phoenicians must have discerned that it was their very existence which was at sake; at all events, unless they were willing to be dislodged from Africa and Sicly and Spain, as they had already been dislodged by the flood of Hellenic colonization, they must alter their policy. Accordingly they joined hands with their inveterate enemies, the Etruscans, to prevent a threatened settlement of some exiled Phocaeans on the important island of Corsica. In Africa they took up arms to make the inhabitants of Cyrene feel that it was towards Egypt or the interior, not towards Carthage, that they must look for an extension of their boundaries; and in Sicily, by withdrawing half voluntarily from the eastern side of the island in which the Greeks had settled, they tightened their grip upon the western portion which, as being nearer to Carthage, was more important to them, and where the original Phoenician settlements of Panormus, Motye and Soloeis had been planted.
The result of this change of policy was that the western half of the Mediterranean became, with one exception, what the whole of it had once bidden fair to be – a Phoenician lake, in which no foreign merchantmen dared to show themselves.”
“No promontory was so barren, no islet so insignificant, as to escape the jealous and ever watchful eye of the Carthaginians.”
“theirs the tiny Elba, with its inexhaustible supply of metals”
“The Nomadic tribes were beaten back beyond the river Triton into the country named, from the roving habits of its inhabitants, Numidia, or into the desert of Tripolis” “The agricultural tribes were forced to pay tribute to the conquerors for the right of cultivating their own soil or to shed their blood on the field of battle in the prosecution of further conquests from the tribes beyond.”
“Utica alone, owing probably to her antiquity and to the semi-parental relation in which she stood to Carthage, was allowed to retain her walls and full equality of rights with the rising power; but Hippo Zarytus, and Adrumetum, the greater and the lesser Leptis, were compelled to pull down their walls and acknowledge the supremacy of the Carthaginian city.”
Os “Libyphoenicians” citados logo no 1º parágrafo do manuscrito nada mais são do que os descendentes da miscigenação dos fenícios e cartagineses comerciando desde sempre nessas regiões mais remotas e dos nativos. Espécies de ‘neo-brasileiros’, fazendo uma comparação grosseira com a situação da nossa colonização por Portugal.
“equidistant from the Berbers on the one hand, and from the Carthaginians proper on the other, and composed of those who were neither wholly citizens nor yet wholly aliens, experienced the lot of most half castes, and were alternately trusted and feared, pampered and oppressed, loved and hated, by the ruling state.”
Havia dois supremos magistrados simultâneos de acordo com os comentários de Aristóteles, provavelmente em derivação da constituição de Tiro. Esse cargo seria o mesmo dos Shofetim (do hebraico), erroneamente traduzidos, segundo o autor, para Juízes em nossa tradição bíblica.
Ou seja: Amílcares e Hanons das linhagens cartaginesas eram os protótipos do que ficamos conhecendo como Gideões e Sansões do Livro dos Juízes; eram menos juízes propriamente ditos do que protetores (função executivo-legislativa) de seus respectivos Estados. Os gregos comparam tal instituição aos dois reis espartanos; os romanos, aos seus próprios cônsules. Nos tempos mais remotos este era um cargo vitalício, e não uma eleição de período curto. Nesse sentido eles parecem mais os sacerdotes religiosos de ambas as nações (Grécia e Roma).
“Carthage was, beyond doubt, the richest city of antiquity. Her ships were to be found on all known seas, and there was probably no important product, animal, vegetable, or mineral, of the ancient world, which did not find its way into her harbours and pass through the hands of her citizens. Her commercial policy was not more far-sighted or more liberal than has been that of other commercial stated, even till very modern times.” Liberal, rsrs.
Colônia nunca será metrópole, como empregado nunca será patrão e servo jamais será senhor.
“But the most important factor in the history of a people – especially if it be a Semitic people – is its religion. The religion of the Carthaginians was what their race, their language and their history would lead us to expect. It was, with slight modification, the religion of the Canaanites, the religion, that is, which, in spite of the purer Monotheism of the Hebrews and the higher teaching of their prophets, so long exercised a fatal fascination over the great bulk of the Hebrew race. The Phoenician religion has been defined to be ‘a deification of the powers of Nature, which naturally developed into an adoration of the objects in which those powers seemed most active.’ Of this adoration the Sun and Moon were the primary objects. The Sun can either create or destroy, he can give life or take it away. The Moon is his consort; she can neither create nor destroy, but she can receive and develop, and, as the queen of night, she presides alike over its stillness and its orgies. Each of these ruling deities, Baal-Moloch or the Sun-god and the horned Astarte or the crescent Moon worshipped at Carthage, it would seem, under the name of Tanith, would thus have an ennobling as well as a degrading, a more cheerful as well as a more gloomy aspect. Unfortunately, it was the gloomy and debasing side of their worship which tended to predominate alike in Phoenicia proper and in the greatest of the Phoenician colonies.
But there was one of these inferior gods who stood in such a peculiar relation to Carthage, and whose worship seems to have been so much more genial and so much more spiritual than the rest, that we are fain to dwell upon it as a foil to what has preceded. This god was Melcarth, that is Melech-Kirjath, or the king of the city; he is called by the Greeks ‘the Phoenician Hercules’, and his name itself has passed, with a slight alteration, into Greek mythology as Melicertes. The city of which he was preeminently the god was Tyre.”
“At Carthage Melcarth had not even a temple. The whole city was his temple, and he refused to be localized in any particular part of it. He received, there is a reason to believe, no sacrifices of blood; and was his comparatively pure and spiritual worship which, as we see repeatedly in Carthaginian history, formed a chief link in the chain that bound the parent to the various daughter-cities scattered over the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean.”
“Hamilcar is he whom Melcarth protects; Hasdrubal is he whose help is in Baal; Hannibal, the Hanniel of the Bible, the grace of Baal; and so on with Bomilcar, Himilco, Ethbaal, Maherbal, Adherbal, and Mastanabal.”
“If we know little of the rich, how much less do we know of the poor of Carthage and her dependencies? The city population, with the exception—a large exception doubtless —of those engaged in commerce, well contented, as it would seem, like the Romans under the Empire, if nothing deprived them of their bread and their amusement, went on eating and marrying and multiplying until their numbers became excessive, and then they were shipped of by the prudence of their rulers to found colonies in other parts of Africa or in Spain.” Tão divertido que haja racistas na Europa, esse “depósito” de civilizações tão mais antigas!
“To so vast an extent did Carthage carry out the modern principle of relieving herself of a superfluous population and at the same time of extending her empire, by colonization, that, on one occasion, the admiral Hanno, whose ‘Periplus’ still remains, was dispatched with sixty ships of war of fifty oars each, and with a total of not less than 30,000 half-caste emigrants on board, [provado pelo fato de o cronista citar ‘mulheres’ a bordo, o que mostra que não era apenas uma expedição conquistadora ou meramente exploradora] for the purpose of founding colonies on the shores of the ocean beyond the Pillars of Hercules.” Ironia terem voltado apenas com a pele de três macacas!
“But the document recording this voyage is of an interest so unique, being the one relic of Carthaginian literature which has come down to us entire, that we must dwell for a moment on its contents. It was posted up by the admiral himself, as a thank-offering, in the temple of Baal, on his return from his adventurous voyage, the first attempt, made by the Phoenicians to reach the equator from the northwest of Africa. It is preserved to us in a Greek translation only, the work probably of some inquisitive Greek traveller, some nameless Herodotus who went wandering over the world like his matchless fellow-countryman, his note-book always in his hand, and always jotting down everything that was of interest to himself, or might be of importance to posterity.”
“There was in Libya—so the Carthaginians told Herodotus—beyond the Pillars of Hercules, an inhabited region where they used to unload their cargoes, and leave them on the beach. After they had returned to their ships and kindled a fire there, the natives seeing the rising column of smoke, ventured down to the beach, and depositing by the merchandise what they considered to be its equivalent in gold, withdrew in their turn to their homes. Once more the Carthaginians disembarked, and if they were satisfied with the gold they found, they carried it off with them, and the dumb bargain was complete. If not, they returned a second time to their ships to give the natives the chance of offering more. The law of honor was strictly observed by both parties; for neither would the Carthaginians touch the gold till it amounted, in their opinion, to the full value of the merchandise; nor would the natives touch the merchandise till the Carthaginians had clinched the transaction by carrying off the gold.
This strange story, long looked upon as fabulous, has, like many other strange stories in Herodotus, been proved by the concurrent testimony of modern travelers to be an accurate account of the dumb trade which still exists in many parts of Africa, and which traversing even the Great Desert, brings the Marroquin into close commercial relations with the Negro, and supplies the great Mohammedan kingdoms of the Soudan with the products of the Mediterranean. It proves also that the gold-fields of the Niger, so imperfectly known to us even now, were well known to the Carthaginians, and that the gold-dust with which the natives of Ashanti lately purchased the retreat of the European invader was the recognized medium of exchange in the days of the father of history.”
“The taxes paid by the natives sometimes amounted to a half of their whole produce, and among the Phoenician dependent cities themselves we know that the lesser Leptis alone paid into the Carthaginian treasury the sum of a talent daily. The tribute levied on the conquered Africans was paid in kind, as is the case with the rayahs of Turkey to the present day, and its apportionment and collection were doubtless liable to the same abuses and gave rise to the same enormities as those of which Europe has lately heard so much. Hence arose that universal disaffection, or rather that deadly hatred, on the part of her foreign subjects, and even of the Phoenician dependencies, towards Carthage on which every invader of Africa could safely count as his surest support. Hence the ease with which Agathocles, with his small army of 15,000 men, could overrun the open country, and the monotonous uniformity with which he entered, one after another, 200 towns, which Carthaginian jealousy had deprived of their walls, hardly needing to strike a blow. Hence, too, the horrors of the revolt of the outraged Libyan mercenaries, supported as it was by the free-will contributions of their golden ornaments by the Libyan women, who hated their oppressors as perhaps women only can, and which is known in history by the name of the ‘War without Truce’, or the ‘Inexpiable War’.
It must, however, he borne in mind that the inherent differences of manners, language, and race between the natives of Africa and the Phoenician incomer were so great; the African was so unimpressible, and the Phoenician was so little disposed to understand, or to assimilate himself to his surroundings, that even if the Carthaginian government had been conducted with any equity, and the taxes levied with a moderation which we know was far from being the case, a gulf profound and impassable must probably have always separated the two peoples. This was the fundamental, the ineradicable weakness of the Carthaginian Empire, and in the long run outbalanced all the advantages obtained for her by her natives, her ports and her well-stocked treasury”
Men are we, and must grieve when e’en the name
Of that which once was great has passed away.
“But if under the conditions of ancient society, and the savagery of the warfare which is tolerated, there was an unavoidable necessity for either Rome or Carthage to perish utterly, we must admit, in spite of the sympathy which the brilliancy of the Carthaginian civilization, the heroism of Hamilcar and Hannibal, and the tragic catastrophe itself call forth, that it was well for the human race that the blow fell on Carthage rather than on Rome. A universal Carthaginian empire could have done for the world, as far as we can see, nothing comparable to that which the Roman universal empire did for it. It would not have melted down national antipathies, it would not have given a common literature or language, it would not have prepared the way for a higher civilization and an infinitely purer religion. Still less would it have built up that majestic fabric of law which forms the basis of the legislation of all the states of Modern Europe and America.” Certamente depois do século XIX nós já não temos o cacife de fazer afirmações tão decisórias!
PHOENICIANS AND CARTHAGINIANS
O pai confinado e sua descendência aventureira…
“The Phoenicians for some centuries confined their navigation within the limits of the Mediterranean, the Propontis, and the Euxine, land-locked seas, which are tideless and far less rough than the open ocean. But before the time of Solomon they had passed the Pillars of Hercules and affronted the dangers of the Atlantic. Their frail and small vessels, scarcely bigger than modern fishing-smacks, proceeded southwards along the West African coast, as far as the tract watered by the Gambia and Senegal, while northwards they coasted along Spain, braved the heavy seas of the Bay of Biscay, and passing Cape Finisterre, ventured across the mouth of the English Channel to the Cassiterides. Singularly, from the West African shore, they boldly steered for the Fortunate Islands (the Canaries), visible from certain elevated points of the coast, though at 170 miles distance. Whether they proceeded further, in the south to the Azores, Madeira, and the Cape Verde Islands, in the north to the coast of Holland, and across the German Ocean to the Baltic, we regard as uncertain. It is possible that from time to time some of the more adventurous of their traders may have reached thus far; but their regular, settled and established navigation did not, we believe, extend beyond the Scilly Islands and coast of Cornwall to the northwest, and to the southwest Cape Non and the Canaries.”
“It appears from the famous chapter Ezekiel 27, which describes the richness and greatness of Tyre in the 6th century B.C, that almost the whole of Western Asia was penetrated by the Phoenician caravans, and laid under contribution to increase the wealth of the Phoenician trader.”
“Translating this glorious burst of poetry into prose, we find the following countries mentioned as carrying on an active trade with the Phoenician metropolis: Northern Syria, Syria of Damascus, Judah and the land of Israel, Egypt, Arabia, Babylonia, Assyria, Upper Mesopotamia, Armenia, Central Asia Minor, Ionia, Cyprus, Hellas or Greece, and Spain.—G. Rawlinson, History of Phoenicia, ch. 9.”
“the rise of the Greek maritime settlements banished their commerce to a great degree from the Aegean Sea, and embarrassed it even in the more westerly waters.”
“And as neither Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians or Indians addressed themselves to a sea-faring life, so it seems that both the importation and the distribution of the products of India and Arabia into Western Asia and Europe were performed by the Idumaean Arabs between Petra and the Red Sea—by the Arabs of Gerrha on the Persian Gulf, joined as they were in later times by a body of Chaldaean exiles from Babylonia—-and by the more enterprising Phoenicians of Tyre and Sidon in these two seas as well as in the Mediterranean.—G. Grote, History of Greece, pt. 2, ch. 18.”
“The goods with which the Carthaginian merchants traded with the African tribes were doubtless such as those which civilized nations have always used in their dealings with savages. Cheap finery, gaudily colored clothes, and arms of inferior quality, would probably be their staple. Salt, too, would be an important article. . . . The articles which they would receive in exchange for their goods are easily enumerated. In the first place comes . . . gold. Carthage seems to have had always at hand an abundant supply of the precious metal for use, whether as money or as plate. Next to gold would come slaves. . . . Ivory must have been another article of Carthaginian trade, though we hear little about it. The Greeks used it extensively in art. . . . Precious stones seem to have been another article which the savages gave in exchange for the goods they coveted. . . . Perhaps we may add dates to the list of articles obtained from the interior. The European trade dealt, of course, partly with the things already mentioned, and partly with other articles for which the Carthaginian merchants acted as carriers, so to speak, from one part of the Mediterranean to another. Lipara, and the other volcanic islands near the extremity of Italy, produced resin; Agrigentum, and possibly other cities of Sicily, traded in sulphur brought down from the region of Etna; wine was produced in many of the Mediterranean countries. Wax and honey were the staple goods of Corsica. Corsican slaves, too, were highly valued. The iron of Elba, the fruit and the cattle of the Balearic islands, and to go further, the tin and copper of Britain, and even amber from the Baltic, were articles of Carthaginian commerce. Trade was carried on not only with the dwellers on the coast, but with inland tribes. Thus goods were transported across Spain to the interior of Gaul, the jealousy of Massilia (Marseilles) not permitting the Carthaginians to have any trading stations on the northern coast of that country.—A.J. Church & A. Filman, The Story of Carthage, pt. 3, ch. 3.”
THE DOMINION OF CARTHAGE
“All our positive information, scanty as it is, about Carthage and her institutions, relates to the fourth, third and second centuries B.C.; yet it may be held to justify presumptive conclusions as to the fifth century B.C., especially in reference to the general system pursued. The maximum of her power was attained before her first war with Rome, which began in 364 B.C.; the first and second Punic wars both of them greatly reduced her strength and dominion. Yet in spite of such reduction we learn that about 150 B.C. shortly before the third Punic war, which ended in the capture and depopulation of the city, not less than 700,000 were computed in it, as occupants of a fortified circumference of above 20 miles, covering a peninsula with its isthmus. Upon this isthmus its citadel Byrsa was situated, surrounded by a triple wall of its own, and crowned at its summit by a magnificent temple of Esculapius [deus da medicina, de origem grega]. The numerous population is the more remarkable, since Utica (a considerable city, colonized from Phoenicia more anciently than even Carthage itself, and always independent of the Carthaginians, though in the condition of an inferior and discontented ally) was within the distance of 7 miles of Carthage on the one side, and Tunis seemingly not much further off on the other. Even at that time, too, the Carthaginians are said to have possessed 300 tributary cities in Libya. Yet this was but a small fraction of the prodigious empire which had belonged to them certainly in the fourth century B.C., and in all probability also between 480-410 B.C.”
“A chosen division of 2,500 citizens, men of wealth and family, formed what was called the Sacred Band of Carthage, distinguished for their bravery in the field as well as for the splendour of their arms, and the gold and silver plate which formed part of their baggage.” Longe de ser uma potência militarista, ao menos no que tange à infantaria…
“We shall find these citizen troops occasionally employed on service in Sicily; but most part of the Carthaginian army consists of Gauls, Iberians, Libyans, etc., a mingled host got together for the occasion, discordant in language as well as in customs.—G. Grote, History of Greece, pt. 2, ch. 81.”
THE NEGRITOS (THE HAIRY PEOPLE OF §18)
“We have seen that the African pygmies probably reached Europe during the Stone Ages, and were certainly frequent visitors at the Courts of the Pharaohs. At present they are all denizens of the woodlands, everywhere keeping to the shelter of the Welle, Ituri, Ruwenzori, Congo, and Ogoway forests within the tropics. To this may be due the fact that they are not black but of a yellowish colour, with reddish-brown woolly head, somewhat hairy body, and extremely low stature ranging from 3 ft. (Lugard) to perhaps 4 ft. 6 in. at most.” Tudo isso me parece muito fabuloso para ainda ser crível na historiografia contemporânea!
“The hirsuteness and dwarfish size were already noticed 2,500 years ago by the Carthaginian Admiral Hanno, to whom we owe the term gorilla applied by him, not to the anthropoid ape so named by Du Chaillu, but to certain hairy little people seen by him on the west coast—probably the ancestors of the dwarfs still surviving in the Ogoway district.
Here they are called Abongo and Obongo, and elsewhere are known by different names—Tikitiki, Akka, or Wochua in the Welle region, Dume in Gallaland, Wandorobo in Masailand, Batwa south of the Congo, and many others. Dr. Ludwig Wolf connects the Batwa both with the northern Akka and the southern Bushmen, all being the scattered fragments of a primeval dwarfish race to be regarded as the true aborigines of equatorial Africa. They live exclusively by the chase and the preparation of palm-wine, hence are regarded by their Bantu friends as benevolent little people whose special mission is to provide the surrounding tribes with game and palm-wine in exchange for manioc, maize, and bananas. Many are distinguished by sharp powers of observation, amazing talent for mimicry, and a good memory. Junker describes the comic ways and nimble action of an Akka who imitated with marvelous fidelity the peculiarities of persons he had once seen—Moslems at prayer, Emin Pasha with his ‘four eyes’ (spectacles), another in a towering rage, storming and abusing everybody, and Junker himself, ‘whom he took off to the life, rehearsing down to the minutest details, and with surprising accuracy, my anthropometric performance when measuring his body at Rumbek 4 years before.’—A.H. Keane, The World’s Peoples, 148-9.”
“The cranes go up as far as the lakes above Egypt, where the Nile originates; there the pygmies are living; and this is not a fable, but pure truth; men and horses are, as they say, of small stature, and live in grottoes.” Aristóteles
“2,600 years ago his ancestors captured the 5 young Nassamonian explorers, and made merry with them at their villages on the banks of the Niger. Even as long as 4,000 ago they were known as pygmies, and the famous battle between them and the storks was rendered into song. On every map since Hecatseus’ time, 500 years B.C, they have been located in the region of the Mountains of the Moon. When Mesu led the children of Jacob out of Goshen, they reigned over Darkest Africa undisputed lords: they are there yet, while countless dynasties of Egypt and Assyria, Persia, Greece and Rome, have flourished for comparatively brief periods, and expired. And these little people have roamed far and wide during the elapsed centuries. From the Niger banks, with successive waves of larger migrants, they have come hither to pitch their leafy huts in the unknown recesses of the forest. Their kinsmen are known as Bushmen in Cape Colony, as Watwa in the basin of the Lulungu, as Akka in Monbuttu, as Balia by the Mabode, as Wambutti in the Ihuru basin, and as Batwa under the shadows of the Lunae Montes.” H.M. Stanley, In Darkest Africa, Vol. 2
Seclusão Anagógica 