the mediterranean and the atlantic 413
century, active corsair activity operating from both Muslim and Christian ports near
the Straits added to the difficulties in navigating out of the Mediterranean into the
Atlantic or vice versa. And corsair activity was not limited to the Mediterranean stra-
tegic entrance at Gibraltar; corsairs sailed from North African and European–Atlantic
ports hoping to make a profit around the troubled waters of the Straits of Gibraltar.
Mediterranean–Atlantic contacts before 1300In spite of the difficulties of sailing out of the Mediterranean, there has long been a
history of contacts between the seas. Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans ventured out
of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic in spite of the sailing difficulties created by
adverse current and winds. Phoenicians and Carthaginian merchants and sailors
sought new markets for their expansive commercial empire, settling a Phoenician/
Carthaginian colony at Mogador (a Portuguese name given to the settlement in the
sixteenth century and present day Essaouira, a Berber name) on Africa’s Atlantic
coast. From there the Carthaginians probably explored the Canary Islands, the
Fortunate Islands of antiquity, and the coast of Africa. Hanno the Navigator’s (king
of Carthagec. fifth century bce) voyages along the coast of Africa show the extent to
which Carthaginians and Greeks (who translated the account of Hanno’s voyages)
had a knowledge of the Atlantic. Phoenician and Carthaginian sailors also traveled
along the Atlantic coast of Iberia before the Common Era. The Greeks, who became
commercial rivals of and eventual successors to the Phoenicians, also ventured into
the Atlantic. This was so in spite of the designation of the Straits of Gibraltar as
Hercules’ columns, marking the end of the world (Cary, 1963; Thompson, 1965).
As to the Greeks, one piece of evidence would suffice. Although focusing on the
Greeks’ search for tin in the Atlantic world, Max Cary’s article shows the manner in
which the Greeks sailed to Brittany, Cornwall, and elsewhere in the northern Atlantic,
searching for that commodity (Cary, 1924). Even though the Carthaginians were able
to effectively block Greek merchants from sailing into the Atlantic through the Straits
of Gibraltar until the Romans dealt a death blow to Carthaginian hegemony, Greek
traders still maintained a trade route between Hellenistic Alexandria and the Atlantic.
A Greek trade network linked both the eastern and western Mediterranean with the
North Atlantic. Sailing along the coast of the western Mediterranean from their out-
posts in Sicily, Marseilles, and the African coast, Greeks (as well as Carthaginians)
sailed out of the Mediterranean to Atlantic sites such as Cádiz (Gades) and modern
Tangier. One could see the advantages of having bases just at the entrance (or exit) of
the Mediterranean before embarking on the long and perilous voyage into the North
Atlantic. And tin was not the only commodity that traveled from the Atlantic into the
ancient Mediterranean. The Greeks, as the Phoenicians had done, are said to have
ventured into the open Atlantic and reached the Canary Islands.
The rise of Rome as a western Mediterranean power marked the demise of
the Carthaginians’ and Greeks’ presence in Atlantic–Mediterranean commercial
exchanges. Although the Romans maintained an active naval traffic between Egypt
(one of the Empire’s most important suppliers of grain and papyrus), Sicily, and North
Africa (also suppliers of grain and fish sauce), Rome was not an aggressive commercial
empire. Nonetheless, the Romans had substantial interests in Atlantic Spain, the
Atlantic coast of what is today south-west France, and, of course, England. In spite of