[537] Herodot. i, 164-165, gives an example of the jealousy of the Chians in respect to the islands called Œnussæ.
[538] Ephorus, Fragm. 52, ed. Marx; Strabo, vi, p. 267.
[539] Herodot. i, 165.
[540] Ἡ καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς θάλασσα (Strabo); τῆσδε τῆς θαλάττης (Herod. iv, 41).
[541] The geographer Ptolemy, with genuine scientific zeal, complains bitterly of the reserve and frauds common with the old traders, respecting the countries which they visited (Ptolem. Geogr. i, 11).
[542] Strabo, iii, pp. 175-176; xvii, p. 802.
[543] Herodot. iv, 42. Καὶ ἔλεγον, ἐμοὶ μὲν οὐ πιστὰ, ἄλλῳ δὲ δή τεῳ, ὡς περιπλώοντες τὴν Λιβύην, τὸν ἡέλιον ἔσχον ἐς τὰ δεξιά.
[544] Herodot. Οὕτω μὲν αὐτὴ ἐγνώσθη τοπρῶτον· (i. e. ἡ Λιβύη ἐγνώσθη ἐοῦσα περίῤῥυτος·) μετὰ δὲ, Καρχηδόνιοί εἰσιν οἱ λέγοντες. These Carthaginians, to whom Herodotus here alludes, told him that Libya was circumnavigable; but it does not seem that they knew of any other actual circumnavigation except that of the Phenicians sent by Nekôs; otherwise, Herodotus would have made some allusion to it, instead of proceeding, as he does immediately, to tell the story of the Persian Sataspês, who tried and failed.
The testimony of the Carthaginians is so far valuable, as it declares their persuasion of the truth of the statement made by those Phenicians.
Some critics have construed the words, in which Herodotus alludes to the Carthaginians as his informants, as if what they told him was the story of the fruitless attempt made by Sataspês. But this is evidently not the meaning of the historian: he brings forward the opinion of the Carthaginians as confirmatory of the statement made by the Phenicians employed by Nekôs.