v HANNO (a very common Carthaginian name, Greek Aιτωv), according to the title of the Peripl·us that passes under the name, was a king (basileus) of the Carthaginians who undertook an exploring and colonizing expedition along the north-western coasts of Africa beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and on his return inscribed a narrative of his voyage in the temple of Saturn. There are no data to fix with any precision the time at which he flourished, the most definite statement about the matter being Pliny’s “Punicis rebus florentissimis.” Bougainville and Vivien de Saint Martin are disposed to assign him to circa 570 B.C.; Heeren, Kluge, and others make him contemporary with a Hanno, father of Hamilcar (c. 510 b.c. ); and Müller thinks he may be possibly identified with Hanno the son of Hamilcar (c. 470 B.C.). According to the Periplus, which is the only detailed notice of the expedition that has come down to us, he sailed with sixty galleys (ρentecontoroi') and 30,000 (?) men and women, and in the course of his voyage south founded the city of Thymiaterium and settled colonies at Gytte, Aera, Melitta, Arambys, and in the island of Cerne or Kerne. The terminus of the voyage was an island beyond a gulf called the Noti Cornu, in which they found a number of “hairy women” whom the interpreters named gorillas.

The identification of the various points mentioned in the narrative has given scope to abundant dissertation and conjecture, and the question as to the site of the gorilla island, or southmost limit of the exploration, has been discussed, with special interest. Bougainville and Dureau de la Malle maintain that Hanno reached the Bight of Benin; Müller and Vivien de Saint Martin find his ultima Thule in the Gulf of Sherboro; Mannert decides in favour of Bissagos, Heeren for the mouth of the Gambia, Malte Brun for the Bay of Cintra, and Quatremère for the neighbourhood of the Senegal, while Gosselin would go no further south than Cape Nun. But while authorities differ so much in the matter of identification, almost all agree that the narrative is one of the most remarkable records of early exploration that have been preserved. “In its original form,” says Vivien de Saint Martin, “it was only a commemorative inscription of barely a hundred lines, and yet in spite of this extreme conciseness there is not one of its details, whether of localities or distances, which is not rigorously conformable to the very accurate acquaintance which we now have of these coasts.” In the 18th century Dodwell called tire authenticity of the Periplus va. question, but it was considered that his arguments had been disposed of by Falconer and others. Recently, however, Μ. Tauxier has renewed the attack, maintaining that in reality we have nothing before us but “a compilation due to an ignorant Greek of the 1st century b.c., brought to its present form by some Christian of the time of Theodosius, probably a student to whom the task was assigned of adapting the old Periplus to the geographical ideas of the day.”

The editio princeps of the Peι∙iρlus of Hanno issued from the press of Frohenius at Basel in 1533 (Άρριανοΰ τreρι∙7rXου^,κ.τ.X.', Avυωvοv 7repi∙πX0υ9 Λιβύην, κ.τ.λ.). Of more recent editions it is enough to mention that in Hudson’s Geographice veteris scriptores Graci nιinories, vol.i., Oxford, 1698, with Dodwe∏ ’ s dissertations prefixed; Arnold Schmidt, Arrians indische Merkwürdigkeiten und Hannons Seereise, Brunswick and Wolfenbüttel, 1764; Thomas Falconer, The Voyage of Hanno translated . . . and defended against the objections of Mr Dodwell, London, 1797: Kluge, Hannonis Navigatio, Leipsic, 1829; and Carl Müller, Geographi,Grad Minores, Paris, 1855. For further details see Muller’s Prolegomena; Bougainville in Acad, des Inscr. el Belles Lettres, tome xxvi.; Vivien de Saint Martin, Le Nord de V Afrique dans V Antiquité, Paris, 1863; Dr Judas in La Revue d'orient; and Μ. Tauxier in La Globe, Geneva, 1867, and Comptes Rendus de ΓAcad. des Jnscr., Paris, 1875.