The ancient trade routes were much more extensive than many people think today and they also developed in multiple directions.
Some to the east, like that of La Seda, which began around the 1st century BC; another, known as the Frankincense, crossed the Near and Middle East... Most traveled the Mediterranean, weaving a dense mercantile network, but there was no shortage of itineraries that linked that southern world with the Nordic one, going up the Atlantic Ocean .
That was the path followed by an obscure and almost unknown Carthaginian named Himilcón .
First of all let's clarify that it is not the same Himilcón who defended Lilibea (now Marsala, in Sicily) from the Roman siege in the First Punic War nor from the other who fought that same enemy under Hannibal in the Second, since that name (actually a Hellenization of the Punic Chimilkât, which means Son of the queen) was quite common in Carthage .
The Himilcón we are referring to was a navigator who lived in a much earlier time, in the middle of the 5th century BC , when the Carthaginians were beginning to lay the foundations for their subsequent conversion into power, already disassociated from Phoenicia and rivaling the Greeks for their colonies in the western Mediterranean.
They still got along well with Rome, with whom they signed a treaty to divide up their respective zones of influence; By that agreement, Carthage was left with the monopoly of that part of the sea plus its extension to the Atlantic.
This growing power allowed the Punic navigators to move through the region of the Strait of Gibraltar thanks to the establishment of bases on the Iberian coast and sail beyond the Pillars of Hercules .
The most famous case is that of Hannon , another rather uncertain character who, according to Pliny the Elder in the Natural History of him , he led a fleet that explored and colonized various points on the West African coast in a journey whose original narration, made in Greek and entitled Hanno's voyage (there are several later classic copies), tells how those daring Punic men reached equatorial Africa , where they discovered some strange men that some analysts believe were referring to pygmies and others to gorillas.
The exact date of that trip is not known but it is calculated between the 7th century and IV BC . This coincides chronologically -within that spectrum of just over two hundred years- with the Himilcón episode, which also made the leap to ocean navigation but in his case inopposite direction , to the north bordering the Iberian Peninsula and the French coast until reaching the North Sea and landing on the British Isles. Thus, he would be the first known explorer to make this itinerary, probably following the one made earlier by the Tartesians; this is indicated by Rufo Festo Avieno .
This author, a Roman consul who lived in the fourth century AD, wrote a work entitled Ora maritima -of which only seven hundred and thirteen verses are preserved- which constitutes an interesting treatise on geography in which the European coastline is described from the north to Ponto Euxino, the Black Sea (in fact, it is usually better known as the maritime coasts). Apparently, he takes as his main source the Massaliota Periplo , by Eutimenes de Masalia, a kind of naval guide for merchants specifying the commercial routes followed by Phoenician and Tartessian sailors in the Iron Age from the Iberian south to Britain; that is, what we know today as the Tin Route .
The Massaliot Journey it has been lost but Avieno's work preserves more or less that information, amplified with texts from other sources such as Ephorus, Hecataeus of Miletus, Hellanicus of Lesbos, Phileo of Athens, Scylax of Carianda, Pausimachus of Samos, Damastes of Sigeus, Bacoris of Rhodes, Euctemon of Athens, Cleon of Sicily, Herodotus of Thurios and Thucydides. His description of the Iberian Peninsula was found by the famous German archaeologist and historian Adolf Schulten interesting enough to use in his tireless but fruitless search for the exact location of Tartessos.
In the Ora maritima The story of Himilcón is included, whose intention was surely to trade in tin , which occurred especially in some islands known as Casiterides or Strimnides , of uncertain identification.
This mineral was used in patina to protect gold jewelry, as well as being alloyed with copper to make bronze; but perhaps the objective was to counteract the high prices of lead , a metal with which tin was combined for solders and which was monopolized by the Phocaean colony of Marseilles (which had its own route to the north through Gaul), the Carthaginians aspiring to displace it from their colony of Gadir (present-day Cádiz).
Between this reference and another by Pliny the Elder It has been possible to reconstruct approximately how that voyage was, always bearing in mind, yes, that the stories are truffled with fantasy typical of the time, with allusions to sea monsters, lack of wind, large banks of algae that prevented their boats from advancing, and the existence of a colossal abyss.
The point of this was to scare away other competitors from sailing there; what Himilcón never imagined is that the tremendous image would take root in the mentality of sailors through the centuries.
Thus, Himilcón would have sailed perhaps from Cartago and crossed the Atlantic around Cape San Vicente to advance parallel to the Lusitanian coast, stopping at Finis Terrae , in the land of the oestrimnios , a people who inhabited what is now Galicia and northern Portugal, and who made their own maritime tin route with the British archipelago, identifying the islands of Arosa or the Cies with the aforementioned Strimnids.
The truth is that there is no archaeological evidence of such a town and some researchers also place it on the coast of Britain French, like those island territories. Himilcón would have followed Cantábrico forward until there. Later, he crossed the English Channel and arrived at the islands of Albion (Great Britain) and possibly Ierne (Hibernia, that is, Ireland); Cornwall, where he is said to have anchored, was also a rich tin mining center.
This is all we know about that journey, which lasted four months going and as many returning, and about Himilcón himself, whom some sources suppose Hannon's brother .
Family ties aside, current historians are more skeptical and believe that Himilcón most likely limited himself to exploring as far as Cabo San Vicente and didn't go beyond there . In any case, the respective efforts of the two Carthaginian sailors did not serve to establish stable trade routes.