- The Hesperides, or ‘Ladies of the West’, were a group of islands in the Atlantic whose location is unknown but is referred to by Roman Historians.
- Pliny the Elder stated that the time taken to sail from the Gorgades to the Hesperides was 40 days.
Possible Locations in the Atlantic
- The Hesperides may have been further around the Cape of West Africa in the Gulf of Guinea, or across the Atlantic in the Caribbean:
- Sao Tome and Principe
- These islands lie in the Gulf of Guinea to the east of the Cape Verde Islands.
- Caribbean Islands
- These islands lie to the west of the Cape Verde Islands.
Gorgades
- Cape Verde Islands (Gorgades)
- Pliny the Elder also quotes the Greek Zenophon of Lampsacus sas saying that the Gorgades were two days sail from Hesperu Ceras (Cap-Vert, the most western point of Africa).
- This would tend to identify them with the Cape Verde Islands.
Fortunate Islands
- Known to the Romans as the ‘Insulae Canarius’, they were also thought to be the ‘Fortunate Islands‘ or ‘Islands of the Blessed’ in Greek Mythology.
- During 1 BCE Augustus planned a circumnavigation of Africa from Egypt to Mogador, but it was not undertaken.
- According to Pliny the Elder, ten years later in 10 CE during the reign of Augustus, a Roman Expedition from Mogador in Morocco, explored the Canary Islands, Madeira and possibly the Cape Verde Islands.
- Pliny the Elder wrote that they found no people only dogs. ‘Canarius’ is dog in Latin, and so he called them the ‘Insulae Canarius’.
- Ptolemy used Mount Teide, in the Canary Islands as the Roman Prime Meridian or Zero Meridian of the Roman World Chart in c. 150 CE.
Sao Tome and Principe