Hanno
HANNO MONIQUE MUND-DOPCHIE (Université Catholique de Louvain) Fortuna. Bibliography. I. Hannonis Periplus. Translation. . Conradus Gesnerus. Commentary. a. Conradus Gesnerus. F The voyage which Hanno, a native of Carthage, took along the coast of West Africa “when the power of Carthage flourished” (i.e., before ..)1 is known to us through two categories of independent sources. To the first category belongs the Hannonis Periplus, an undated Greek text, describing the voyage from beginning to end. The complete title , [Annwno" Karchdonivwn basilevw" perivplou" tw'n uJpe;r ta;" ÔHraklevou" sthvla" Libukw'n th'" gh'" merw'n, o}n kai; ajnevqhke ejn tw/' tou' Krovnou temevnei dhlou'nta tavde (“The Sea-Voyage of Hanno, King of the Carthaginians, around the Libyan Regions of the Earth beyond the Pillars of Heracles, which he also set up in the shrine of Cronos, stating as follows”) indicates that this work is a Greek translation of a Punic text, composed by Hanno himself, which was engraved and kept inside the temple of Baal-Cronos in Carthage. At present only two manuscript witnesses are known: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek , Pal. gr. , s. IX, fols. r–r and its fourteenth-century apograph, Mount Athos, Vatopedon Monastery, + London, British Library , Add. ms. + Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, suppl. grec A.2 The second category of sources consists of al- . Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia .. The date of the voyage is controversial: perhaps before .., certainly before .. There is no consensus on this topic among philologists and historians of Antiquity; see J. Desanges , Recherches sur l’activité des Méditerranéens aux confins de l’Afrique (VIe siècle avant J.-C.–IVe siècle après J.-C.), Collection de l’École Française de Rome (Rome, ), – and S. Bianchetti, “Isole africane nella tradizione romana,” in L’Africa romana. Atti del VI Convegno di studio, Sassari, – dicembre , ed. A. Mastino (Sassari , ), –, especially nn. and . . Pal. gr. remained in Byzantium until the fifteenth century. It then formed part of the collection of Greek manuscripts acquired in the s by Cardinal Johannes Stojkovi∞ of Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik) and bequeathed by him in to the Dominican Convent of Basel. Hieronymus Froben, the famous Basel printer, obtained from the convent several manuscripts which he used for his editions. Those manuscripts which were not returned to the convent were presented by Froben to Otto Heinrich, Palatine Elector and founder of the Palatine Library in Heidelberg. Pal. gr. was listed in the Palatine Library catalogue attributed to Friedrich Sylburg (d. ). In this codex was brought by Leo Allatius to the Vatican Library; from there it went in to the Biblioth èque Nationale, Paris and returned in to Heidelberg . The apograph was discovered in by E. Zachariä in the Vatopedon Monastery on Mount Athos where the main portion of the manuscript is still preserved. In the s a number of leaves were detached and came into the possession of the British Museum, now the British Library ( folios, among them Hannonis Periplus), and of lusions made by several Greek and Latin authors to various episodes and accounts of Hanno’s voyage .3 The oldest testimony concerning a district outside the Pillars of Heracles, part of which burns continuously and part only at night, is cited in De mirabilibus auscultationibus , a pseudo-Aristotelian treatise composed ca. .. (?). In the first century .., Pliny the Elder (Naturalis historia ., ., .) and Pomponius Mela (De chorographia ., ) include Hanno as a source in their descriptions of the coast of West Africa, as does Solinus (Collectanea rerum memorabilium , ), a geographer of the third century .., who relied heavily on Pliny. Arrianus (second century ..) gives in his I j ndikhv . a fairly long extract concerning the end of the expedition, and Athenaeus of Naucratis (third century ..) provides in Deipnosophistae .c some ironical reflections on Hanno’s wanderings. There is also a corrupt text by Palaiphatos ( ..?) with a mention of a “river Hanno” (Peri; ajpivstwn ). The Hannonis Periplus and these indirect sources reveal diverse traditions. Although they agree on the reality of Hanno’s voyage along the coast of West Africa and his discovery of extraordinary places, they are opposed on several points and leave some problems unsolved. Thus, there are discrepancies concerning the termination of the expedition. Accordingly, in some instances Hanno is forced to retrace his course because of a shortage of supplies (Periplus ; Pomponius Mela, De chorographia .) or unbearable traveling conditions (Arrianus, I j ndikhv .); other authorities , however, credit the Carthaginian admiral with the circumnavigation of Africa (Pliny, Naturalis historia .). It should also be noted that the...
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