Nero expedition to Nile sources

Murchison Falls

Expedition by Nero to the sources of the Nile was a small expedition done by Roman legionaries in order to explore equatorial Africa.

The expedition

In the autumn of AD 61 the Emperor Nero sent a party of Praetorian soldiers under the command of a tribune and two centurions into Nubia, who reached the city of Meroe where they were given an escort, then proceeded up the White Nile until they encountered the swamps of the Sudd and many primitive peoples they described as cavemen or troglodytes.[1] This expedition marked the limit of Roman penetration into equatorial Africa.[2]

However the Italian historian Vannini believes that the legionaries were able to reach lake Victoria, based on the description of their discovery of huge water falls. Vannini noted that in the Seneca interview to the legionaries, they described a Nile falls that is very similar to the Murchison Falls.

«Ibi Vidimus duas Petras, ex quibus ingens vis fluminis excidebat…ex magno terrarum lacu ascendere…» We saw two huge rocks, from which the power of the (Nile) river went out in a powerful way.....(The Nile river) comes from a very huge lake of the (african) lands [3]

Seneca wrote a book, De Nubibus in "Naturales Quaestiones",[4] that gave details about a Nero expedition to the «caput mundi investigandum» (to explore the top of the world) in 62 AD. In this book he explained to have reported what two legionaries told him about their discovery of the «caput Nili» (the origin of the Nile river).[5]

Furthermore Seneca wrote that the legionaries told him that the water of the Nile river, that jumped through two huge rocks, was coming from a very big lake inside the African lands. This lake -according to Vannini- could only be the Victoria lake, the biggest African lake. Indeed the only river that goes out from this huge lake is the White Nile (named "Victoria Nile" when exits the lake), that in Jinja (Uganda) goes north toward the "Murchison Falls".

The Nero expedition from Roman Egypt reached the area of Jinja in Uganda, according to historian Vannini

Indeed "Murchison Falls" is a waterfall on the Nile, that breaks the Victoria Nile, which flows across northern Uganda from Lake Victoria to Lake Kyoga and then to the north end of Lake Albert in the western branch of the East African Rift. At the top of Murchison Falls, the Nile forces its way through a gap in the rocks, only 7 metres (23 ft) wide, and tumbles 43 metres (141 ft), then flows westward into Lake Albert.

The outlet of Lake Victoria sends around 300 cubic meters per second (11,000 ft³/s) of water over the falls, squeezed into a gorge less than ten metres (30 ft) wide: these falls are similar in shape to the ones described by the legionaries.

Vantini wrote in the magazine Nigrizia in 1996 that the legionaries did an explorative travel of more than 5,000 km from Meroe to Uganda: a remarkable achievement done using small boats in order to bypass the Sudd, a huge swamp full of dangerous Nile crocodiles.[6]

Diogenes

Another Roman exploration travel -not well known and referenced- to equatorial Africa was done by Diogenes, a merchant who lived between 70 AD and 130 AD. Evidently he knew of the legionaries expedition when he made a commercial travel from Roman Egypt toward the southern coast of Punt (actual Somalia) around the end of the first century of the Roman empire, and wanted to find the sources of the Nile river from there.

In his travel -cited by Marinus of Tyre- he went initially to Adulis (near Asmara in actual Eritrea) and then moved south until he reached the commercial port of Rhapta, on the actual Tanzania coast and named on the Periplus Maris Erythraei. This city was near the actual city of Mitwara on the border of actual Mozambique: from there he walked 25 days toward the interior of equatorial Africa in order to reach the big lakes of the region. He described the lakes and the mountains with snow from which he believed was born the Nile river: he called "Montis lunae" the Kilimanjaro with the Meru mountains, and "Lacus lunae" the Lake Victoria.[7]

Geographer Marinus of Tyre[8] wrote about this Diogenes travel in the Trajan times and the same Claudius Ptolemy in his famous "Geography" described -thanks to him- the existence of the "Montis lunae" at 7 degrees south of the Equator.[9] According to Claudius Ptolemy we have a different version of Diogenes travel: Ptolemy wrote that Diogenes, a Roman merchant in the Indian trade, was blown off course from his usual route from India, and after travelling 25 days south along the coast of Africa arrived at Rhapta, located where the river of the same name enters the Indian Ocean opposite the island of Menouthias. Ptolemy even added that Diogenes further described this river as having its source near the "Mountains of the Moon", near the swamp whence the Nile was said to also have its source.

References

  1. ↑ E. M. Sanford, L.P. Kirwan, and the East", Classical Philology, 48 (1937), pp. 75-103
  2. ↑ L.P. Kirwan, "Rome beyond The Southern Egyptian Frontier", Geographical Journal, 123 (1957), pp. 16f
  3. ↑ Seneca: "De Terrae Motu", NQ VI, 8,5
  4. ↑ Seneca: De Terrae Motu, NQ VI, IX, 3-5
  5. ↑ 08/seneca-naturales-quaestiones-liber-vi.html Seneca "Naturales quaestiones" (in Latin). Sections 8,3 e 8,4
  6. ↑ Nile crocodile attacks
  7. ↑ Francesco Lamendola: "Dove nasce il Nilo?" (in Italian)
  8. ↑ Marinus of Tyre
  9. ↑ His Geographia, IV.8. reports “The Mountain of the Moon” (τὸ τῆς Σελήνης ὄρος) and its location. But William D. Cooley in an 1854 monograph argued that the passage in question is a later interpolation.

Bibliography

See also