When the Romans ruled the world, commerce lost much of the hazard and enterprise which had earlier instigated international rivalry. The interest in the western ocean subsided into merely speculative concern; and wild fancy was brought into play in depicting its horrors, its demons and shoals, with the intermingling of sky and water.
Knowledge of such early attempts.
Maps XVth cent.
Genoese voyages, 1291.
It is by no means certain that Columbus knew anything of this ancient lore of the early Mediterranean people. There is little or nothing in the early maps of the fifteenth century to indicate that such knowledge was current among those who made or contributed to the making of such of these maps as have come down to us. The work of some of the more famous chart makers Columbus could hardly have failed to see, or heard discussed in the maritime circles of Portugal; and indeed it was to his own countrymen, Marino Sanuto, Pizignani, Bianco, and Fra Mauro, that Portuguese navigators were most indebted for the broad cartographical treatment of their own discoveries. At the same time there was no dearth of legends of the venturesome Genoese, with fortunes not always reassuring. There was a story, for instance, of some of these latter people, who in 1291 had sailed west from the Pillars of Hercules and had never returned. Such was a legend that might not have escaped Columbus's attention even in his own country, associating with it the names of the luckless Tedisio Doria and Ugolino Vivaldi in their efforts to find a western way to India. Harrisse, however, who has gone over all the evidence of such a purpose, fails to be satisfied.
These stories of ocean hazards hung naturally about the seaports of Portugal.
Antillia.
Galvano tells us of such a tale concerning a Portuguese ship, driven west, in 1447, to an island with seven cities, where its sailors found the people speaking Portuguese, who said they had deserted their country on the death of King Roderigo. This is the legend of Antillia, already referred to.
Islands seen.