[14] Plin. I. 6. c. 29.
[15] The miles here used are three to the league; but the league of the text is nearly equal to four English miles, and the assumed distance of these two ports 140 of our miles--E.
[16] Strab. I. 17. p. 560.
[17] Plin. I. 6. c. 29.
About this time the Grecians gathered a fleet and army, called the Argonautic expedition, under the command of Jason and Alceus[18]. Some say they sailed from Crete, and others from Greece; but they passed through the Propontis and the sleeve of St George into the Euxine, where some of the vessels perished, and Jason returned back to Greece. Alceus reported that he was driven by a tempest to the Palus Maeotis, where he was deserted by all his company; and those who escaped had to travel by land to the German ocean, where they procured shipping; and sailing past the coasts of Saxony, Friesland, Holland, Flanders, France, Spain, and Italy, returned to the Peloponnesus and Greece, after discovering a great portion of the coast of Europe.
[18] Diod. Sic. I. 4. c. 4.
Strabo, on the authority of Aristonicus the grammarian, says, that king Menelaus, after the destruction of Troy, sailed from the Grecian sea to the Atlantic, coasted along Africa and Guinea, doubled the Cape Bona Sperança, and arrived in India[19]; concerning which voyage many other particulars might be collected from the writings of the ancients. This Mediterranean Sea was sometimes called the Adriatic, the Aegean, and the Herculean Sea; and had other names, according to the lands, coasts, and islands, which it skirted, till, running through the Straits of Hercules, between Spain and Africa, it communicated with the great Atlantic Ocean. Thirteen hundred years after the flood, Solomon caused a navy to be constructed at Ezion-geber on the Red Sea, which sailed to Tharsis and Ophir, which some believe to have been islands in the East Indies. This fleet was three years on its voyage, and on its return brought gold, silver, cypress-wood, and other commodities[20]. The islands to which the navy of Solomon traded were probably those we now call the Luçones, the Lequeos, and China; for we know of few other places whence some of the things mentioned as forming their cargoes can be had, or where navigation has been so long practised.
[19] Strab. I. 1. p. 26.
[20] Kings, I. 9. Chron. II. 8.
Necho, one of the kings of Egypt, was desirous to have joined the Red Sea with the Mediterranean, and is said in history to have commanded some Phenicians to sail from the Red Sea by the Straits of Mecca, and to endeavour to return to Egypt by the Mediterranean[21]. This they accomplished, and sailed along the coast of Melinda, Quiloa, and Sofala, till they reached the Cape of Good Hope, which they doubled; and, continuing their course to the north, they sailed along the coast of Guinea all the way to the Mediterranean, and returned to Egypt after two years absence, being the first who had circumnavigated Africa.