It is a shame that [Greek explorer Euthymenes'] work was ridiculed by later writers - Herodotus does not name Euthymenes, but he most vehemently attacks the idea that the Nile was fed by Oceanus and it is not a theory that is given much credence in the subsequent discourse. Yet perhaps he has been unfairly treated. His expedition and the information he gathered must have made its way to other navigators and explorers in the Mediterranean. In the fifth century BCE a Carthaginian by the name of Hanno undertook a similar voyage, possibly going as far south as modern Cameroon. Along the way, Hanno described meeting indigenous peoples, wild animals, and one particular oddity for which he is most well known:
[T]here was another island, full of savage men. But there were a lot more women, with their bodies covered in hair: our interpreters called these people Gorillai. When we pursued them in the chase, we were unable to capture any of the men; for they all fled to the high ground and kept us at bay by throwing stones. However, we took three of the women, who bit and clawed at their captors and did not want to follow. So we killed and flayed them, and brought their skins back to Carthage.
This story of a wild tribe of hairy people, with strong, powerful men who were outnumbered by women, living in West Africa stuck in the European imagination. In 1847 CE, when Thomas S. Savage sent a partial skeleton of a large, powerful, hairy ape from West Africa to Jeffries Wyman at Harvard, the story of Hanno immediately came to mind as he wrote up the first scientific assessment of a new great ape. We do not know whether Hanno was actually describing a troop of gorillas, but one thing is certain - it is because of his account that gorillas have acquired their name.
- Owen Rees, The Far Edges of the Known World: A New History of the Ancient Past, London, 2025, p.142-3.
