The histories of Herodotus;

42-43] CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF AFRICA 225
digging the canal leading from the Nile to the Arabian Gulf,
sent certain Phoenicians in ships, with orders to sail back
through the Pillars of Hercules into the northern sea, 1 and so
to return
out from
to Egypt. The Phoenicians,
the Red Sea, navigated the
accordingly, setting
southern sea; when
autumn came, they went ashore, and sowed the land, by whatever
part of Libya they happened to be sailing, and waited
for harvest; then having reaped the corn, they put to sea
again. When two years had thus passed, in the third, having
doubled the Pillars of Hercules, they arrived in Egypt, and
related what to me does not seem credible, but may to others,
that as they sailed round Libya they had the sun on their right
hand. Thus was Libya first known. Subsequently the Carthaginians
say that Libya is surrounded by water. For Sataspes,
son of Teaspes, one of the Achsemenidse, did not sail round
Libya, though sent for that very purpose; but dreading the
length of the voyage and the desolation, returned home and
did not accomplish the task which his mother imposed upon
him : for he had violated a virgin, daughter of Zopyrus, son of
Megabyzus ; whereupon, when he was about to be impaled
for this offence by King Xerxes, the mother of Sataspes, who
was sister to Darius, begged him off, promising that she would
inflict a greater punishment upon him than he would, for she
would constrain him to sail round Libya, until, sailing round,
he should reach the Arabian Gulf. Xerxes having agreed
on these terms, Sataspes went into Egypt, and having taken
a ship and men from thence, sailed through the Pillars of
Hercules ; and having sailed through, and doubled the cape
of Libya, whose name is Solois, he steered to the southward
but after traversing a vast extent of sea, in many months,
when he found that he had still more to pass, he turned back,
and sailed away for Egypt. From thence going to King
Xerxes, he told him that in the most distant part he sailed
past a nation of little men, who wore garments made of palmleaves,
who, whenever they drew to shore, left their cities and
flew to the mountains ; that his men, when they entered their
country, did them no injury, but only took some cattle from
them. Of his not sailing completely round Libya, this he
said was the cause : that his ship could not proceed any farther,
but was stopped. Xerxes, however, being persuaded
that he did not speak the truth, as he had not accomplished
the task imposed upon him, impaled him, inflicting the original
sentence. A eunuch of this Sataspes, as soon as he heard
of his master's death, ran away to Samos with great wealth,
1 Meaning "the Mediterranean," which was north of Libya.
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