EXPLORATION, ANCIENT. The legend of the Argo nauts undoubtedly grew up around the story of actual voyages made by the early Greeks to the Far East. The Phoenicians were the first nation of discoverers, and, like most of their successors, they were animated by the desire of gain. Tyre and Sidon became great commercial centres, from which ships sailed to all the Mediterranean waters, and to which traders came from India and from the lands beyond the Red Sea a thousand years before the Christian Era. By the time of Ilerodotus (c.484.424 n.c.) Phcenieian voyagers had passed through the Straits of Gibraltar, the ancient Pillars of Hercules, establishing settle ments along the northwestern African coast, or coasting across the Bay of Biscay to the tin mines of Cornwall. The Phccnicians made valu able contributions to the. exact knowledge of geography in their peripli or itineraries. The names of two famous sea captains are associated with the furthermost extension of Phtenician ex ploration: that of Hanno (about B.C. 450) , who led a party of several thousand colonists down the African coast to the neighborhood of Sierra Leone, and that of Himilco (about B.C. 500), who sailed beyond Cornwall to Ierne or Ireland. An other famous voyage was made somewhat previous to this time by an Egyptian fleet dispatched by the Pharaoh Necho, which started from the Red Sea and, as it is reported, returned through the Straits of Gibraltar after a voyage around Africa lasting several years. About B.C. 320 Pytheas, a Carthaginian navigator, set out from Marseilles, and sailed past the coast of Spain and Gaul as far as 'Ultima Thule,' probably the Shetland Islands. The conquests of Alexander the Great add ed little to the limits of exploration, but proved of inestimable service in bringing Europe and Asia together, and giving the West some knowl edge of the countries and characteristics of the East. Rome continued the work of increasing
and unifying the geographical knowledge of the world, and brought Britain, Germany, and many other border regions within the circle of civilized nations. Much of this knowledge was wiped out in Europe by the irruptions of the Germanic and Tatar tribes, but much, too, was fortunately saved by the Arabians, who rose to power after 630. Science and learning, driven out of Europe, flourished at Bagdad, Damascus, and Cordova, and other capitals of Islam. After 800 the study of the Ptolemaic cosmography was assiduously carried on, and important geographical treatises were composed by Abu Jaafra Mohammed, who wrote between 813 and 833; Al Masudi, who, be tween 943 and 947, traveled extensively in South ern Europe and Asia, going as far as China; and Idrisi, whose comprehensive Geographer's Garden of Delight appeared in 1154. The greatest of the Mohammedan travelers was Ibn j3atuta (c.1304 78), a Moor of Tangiers in Morocco, who trav ersed Northern Africa, Asia Minor, India, China, and the steppes of Southern Russia and Cen tral Asia, covering nearly 75,000 miles. When the Renaissance came in Europe much of the older geographical learning was recovered from Arabic books and scholars. During the mediaeval period the journeys of Benjamin of Tudela (1160. 1173), Friar John of Piano Carpini in 1245, William of Ruysboeck in 1255, and the Fran ciscan Friar Odoric (1316-1330), served to keep Europe in touch with what was happening in Asia. Much more important were the travels of Marco Polo of Venice, because the spirited account of his adventures and observations, writ ten after his return in 1295, acted greatly toward the revival of active exploration.